News Article

Emergency Services Call ICS for NHS Payroll

15 April 2009

ICS Computing Ltd has announced a new NHS payroll contract win with North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS), the largest ambulance service in Europe. ICS Computing will provide fully managed NHS payroll, pensions and car-leasing processing services to more than 4000 Trust employees.

The solution utilises NWAS' Electronic Staff Record (ESR) software, a national HR and payroll system which has been phased in nationally by the NHS over the last five years and is now used by all NHS Trusts across England and Wales. It is anticipated that the service will help NWAS to achieve major cost-savings year-on-year thanks to greater process efficiencies through reduced paperwork and better utilisation of resources.

The contract builds on ICS Computing's previous experience in the UK health service, which includes the provision of payroll processing and consultancy services to the London-based Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust - the largest Trust in the UK - and several other leading Trusts.

North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust was created as an amalgamation of four former ambulance services in Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire & Merseyside and operates from over 120 locations including three emergency control centres. The four former trusts were all using different payroll services and the new ICS Computing NHS payroll solution efficiently collects payroll data across the wide geographic area and provides a unified, adaptive service for the Trust.

Mike Evans, Workforce Information Manager said: "NWAS has chosen ICS because of its high level of payroll experience and its ability to meet NWAS' diverse demands through proven technical solutions for operating payroll services over a large geographical area. NWAS is extremely pleased with this partnership with ICS Computing."

Mervyn McCormick, ICS Computing's NHS Business Manager, commented:

"This contract is a direct result of our expertise in this sector, our understanding of ESR, potential client issues and our partnership approach which means we work with clients to evolve and develop the solution - rather than a quick fix, short-term option.

It is expected that this solution will reduce errors, risks and costs for NWAS, and will also save time in terms of more efficient data capture. NWAS is also using ICS Computing payroll Analyser reporting tool which gives easy access to advanced management information."