News Article

ICS Computing Wins Major NHS Payroll Contract with Pennine Care

16th December 2008

ICS Computing has been awarded a major new three-year contract to provide payroll and pension services to the Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust. The investment will help the Trust, which provides mental health and substance misuse services to 1.2 million people in the North West of England, to reduce payroll costs each year over the next three years.

The contract builds on ICS Computing's previous experience in the UK healthcare sector, which includes the provision of payroll processing services to the London-based Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the largest Trust in the UK incorporating St Mary's NHS Trust, The Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and five London hospitals.

The ICS Computing solution will deliver integrated, accurate and consistent payroll services to Pennine Care's 3,500 employees, with easy-to-use configured service management and progressive solution development allowing for adaptation of the system over time. Key to the solution is ICS Computing's electronic data capture software, this reduces human error in data input and creates efficiencies through reduced paperwork and resources. The software is compatible with the Trust's Electronic Staff Record (ESR) software, a system which has been phased in over the last five years and is now used by all NHS Trusts across England and Wales.

Gillian Cox, project lead of Pennine Care, commented on the reasons for choosing the new system: "We recognised that ICS Computing had a wealth of experience in this sector and were attracted to its innovative and competitive service offering, which consists of an extremely efficient approach to gathering information and data analysis. One of our strategic goals is to ensure that we offer our staff 'a great place to work' and our approach to HR and payroll management is a key part of that. The nature of our organisation demands a system that can manage change effectively, so we required a tailor-made service that can adapt to our requirements over time. We believe that ICS Computing can deliver a service closely matched with our needs which will offer us tangible benefits in terms of cost-savings through greater process efficiencies, and look forward to improvements year on year."

A team of Six Sigma* accredited consultants fully trained in process improvement methodology will be on site to implement and manage the solution for Pennine Care, which is set to go live in April 2009.

ICS Computing's Mervyn McCormick, Business Manager for NHS projects, said: "We identified the opportunity to provide quality payroll services at competitive prices together with software that would complement the ESR software recently adopted by UK hospitals. Our solution for Pennine Care provides an integrated platform with ESR, which allows for a seamless transfer of data and offers an easily accessible reporting and analysis function. Our success in the NHS is due to our understanding of ESR, client issues and our partnership approach. This customer-focused approach also means we work with clients to evolve and develop the solution over time".

The company has been providing payroll solutions for over 40 years and is the largest, privately owned, payroll provider in the UK.