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NHS Property Services: Digital Transformation with Microsoft Azure
Investing in primary patient care was the key objective for NHS Property Services and required a change in mindset. Executing a robust digital transformation strategy was essential to improving services and accelerating business growth.
The solution
The initial challenge was to implement new business initiatives without increasing employee headcount and operational costs.
To execute at pace and ensure solutions were designed to be future-proof, NHS Property Services adopted a cloud approach using the Microsoft Azure platform, using the QuickConnect Integration-Platform-As-A-Service (iPaaS) accelerator to design, develop, implement and manage the solution.
The QuickConnect iPaaS, comprised of: Azure Service Bus, API Management, Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Storage, Azure Redis Cache, Azure Event Hubs, Azure App Service.
Benefits
A greater level of operational efficiency
Improved systems for generating new revenue streams
Automating invoice processes to reduce loss of revenue
Future proof architecture that supports ongoing digital transformation
A new opportunity
NHS Property Services was formed in 2013 following the merger of property services departments from 161 NHS Primary Care Trusts across England. Today, the NHS Property Services portfolio consists of 3,500 buildings worth over £3 billion. The primary objective is to reduce cost, create a fit for purpose property estate and generate vital revenue for reinvestment in frontline patient care. Like any complex business merger, progress hadn’t always been easy. In particular, NHS Property Services had to face the considerable challenge of managing and integrating technology systems from hundreds of different organisations.
"We had a large number of disparate, unconnected applications and no ‘master’ of data for areas like finance, e-billing, capital works, facilities management or credit control," says Kevin Canning, Solutions Architect for Technical Services in NHS Property Services.
"It was difficult to perform even basic functions. For example, we couldn’t invoice for rented properties consistently, and we couldn’t take on more properties into our portfolio. We were losing revenue as a result."
Many of the systems were provided by Commissioning Support Units within different areas across the NHS estate, which meant that NHS Property Services had no control over how systems were managed or interfaced with each other. NHS Property Services decided to change strategic direction. Break away from legacy vendor relationships and run independently from all NHS systems.
NHS Property Services
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NHS Property Services is a private company that provides property and facilities management services to 10% of the NHS estate. Formed in 2013, NHS Property Services is tasked with both modernising and generating income from NHS property to improve frontline patient care.
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