South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) is aiming to automate some of its core business processes under a recently agreed deal with security and risk management consultancy Turnkey Consulting.
It is planning to move away from its current manual systems for identify management, HR and incident management with an upgrade of the Micro Focus SCAS Identity Management (IDM) platform.
Turnkey is to integrate the platform with the centralised NHS Electronic Staff Record HR system using a combination of process automation and electronic workflows. This will enable SCAS to digitise some of its processes – including for joiners, movers and leavers – along with incident reporting for property and personal injury. Requests within the processes will be completed online.
The company said that, as the overall capabilities of the platform become more widely understood after implementation, it could lay the ground for further automation in the organisation, and provide a blueprint for other NHS trusts.
Pain point
Mark Northcott, head of information security and governance at SCAS, said: “The cessation of fax machine use within the NHS is a practical move, but implementing the policy is a major pain point for our ambulance service with many systems using paper forms for reporting.
“Working with Turnkey to digitise this system, while also automating some of the critical key worker processes that are currently manual and paper based, is a big step up for us; it paves the way for increasing technical efficiencies across the organisation and frees up resources to focus on providing front line services at a time when we have been at our greatest pressure.”
SCAS, which covers Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire, will receive these services on a pro bono basis in recognition of the critical COVID-19 work being carried out by the ambulance service.
