As the benefits of RPA have become more widely proven, the technology looks to have become an attractive tool for the cash-strapped and risk-averse public sector. As such, the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has just announced its plans of becoming a model of RPA best practices for Trusts across the country.

Automation Anywhere is providing the Trust with technologies that can help automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks and create opportunities for staff to collaborate on critical tasks that matter, in this case to provide clinical and non-clinical staff with the support needed to deliver high-quality, patient centred care.

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“We strive to improve the quality of care and patient experience through the most efficient use of our resources. Investment in technical excellence, like RPA, will help us make our corporate services more productive and efficient, enabling the Trust to provide the highest standard of patient care and offer the best value for money for the tax-payer.” said Sandra Easton, chief financial officer, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. “The implementation of the new Centre of Excellence enables us to deploy our workforce on tasks of greater value.”

The Trust has been struggling with legacy technology and suffering from countless inefficiencies for some time. With the new RPA Centre of Excellence, the Trust hopes to achieve efficiency and productivity gains in back office activities by automating high volume repetitive tasks to support staff, within areas such as finance, HR, procurement, and informatics. According to the Trust, there are no plans to reduce employee numbers.

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The Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust operates two hospitals, one in central London, the Chelsea and Westminster hospital, and one in Isleworth West London, the West Middlesex University Hospital. It is one of the best performing Trusts in the country. It employees around 6,000 staff and has recently been rated as ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and Outstanding for use of resources by NHS Improvement.