NHS Shared Business Services (SBS), a joint venture between the Department of Health and IT services provider Steria, has won £13.8m worth outsourcing contracts to manage finance, accounting and payroll services for 12 more NHS organisations.
Jim Vincent, managing director of NHS SBS, said: “These new contracts not only bolster our NHS expertise and reach, but underline our position as a pioneer in public and private collaboration. NHS SBS offers a flexible and secure service, ultimately freeing up funds for patient care.”
Founded in 2005, SBS offers finance, accounting, procurement and payroll services to 200,000 users in about 100 NHS organisations. SBS says that it offers clients benefits such as quality management information, fast paperless transaction processing and savings in procurement. Over 1000 employees in the UK and India process four million transactions a year for SBS clients.
The latest NHS organisations to have joined the SBS clientele include: London Strategic Health Authority, Surrey & Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, Christie Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Queen Mary’s Sidcup NHS Trust, Bromley Hospital NHS Trust, Lewisham Hospital NHS Trust, Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust, NHS Direct, Brighton & Hove PCT, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and Leicestershire County and Rutland PCT.
Tony Burnell, director of people and transformation at Leicestershire Partnership Trust, said: “NHS SBS have the knowledge and capability to supply a first class payroll system. They understand the complexities of F&A and NHS pay and are able to fully support the needs of our organisation. They have considerable experience in dealing with NHS salary payments.”
Headquartered in Paris, Steria offers integrated services including consulting and information systems development and operation services, to its customers in the public sector, finance, telecommunications, utilities and transport industries in Europe. In October 2007, Steria acquired the British firm Xansa.
In November this year, Land Registry has signed a five-year contract worth £50m, under which Steria will provide a managed ICT (information and communication technology) service for the organisation’s Distributed IT Infrastructure (DITI) and Extranet services.