Resumo de National Health Service Business Benefits

NHS trusts in Wales primarily manage secondary care
services, although some trusts are national or regional
centers for more specialized care. Trusts also employ most
of the NHS workforce?including doctors, nurses, and
dentists, as well as its therapists, technical and support
staff. The NHS is funded primarily by the taxpayer, and is
therefore accountable to the Welsh Assembly.
Cardiff & Vale NHS Trust was formed after the merger of
Cardiff Community NHS Trust, the University Hospital of
Wales, the Dental NHS Trust and Llandough Hospital NHS
Trust. The newly created trust serves the most populous
areas in Wales. It handles an average of 700,000 patient
visits each year at its nine hospitals, 24 health centers,
as well as numerous community locations, or in patients?
homes. To deliver this care, the trust employs 11,500 people
and works within an operating budget of £500 million (US$907
million) a year.
As a part of the United Kingdom?s extensive National Health
Service (NHS), Cardiff & Vale NHS Trust in Wales has a dual
mandate: deliver high quality care to all its citizens and
ensure that their taxes, which pay for the system, are spent
wisely.
Each trust is also responsible for developing a strategy on
how to improve services to patients. In 1999, Cardiff & Vale
NHS Trust joined with 11 other Welsh trusts in mapping out a
course that would eventually unite the trusts on a common e-
business infrastructure. Such a system, the trusts
determined, would trim waste and bring uniform
accountability to key business processes, particularly in
the area of procurement and payment processing.
Collectively, Wales NHS trusts spend some £3.8 billion
(US$6.8 billion) annually.
As a first step, Cardiff & Vale NHS Trust is investing £2.3
million over five years on a selection of Oracle
procurement, financial, and portal technologies designed to
improve financial management, automate procurement, drive
out maverick spending, reduce supply chain inefficiencies,
and give the trust more leverage in negotiating bulk
purchasing agreements.
Cardiff & Vale?s decision to invest in new procurement and
financial solutions was spearheaded by the trust?s director
of finance, Paul Davies who saw the possibility of deriving
immediate and long-term gain from greater efficiencies.
Davies' team felt that these process efficiencies, if
substantial enough, would offset the extra cost of a leading
edge solution. After studying its supply chain, billing,
procurement, receivables and financial management processes,
the finance and procurement team conservatively estimated
the trust could save more than £1 million over eight years.
?We had no choice but to make the change,? Davies said. The
change also serves possible wider organizational objectives
of eventually running an ?all Wales, Health? online buying
collective and other shared initiatives on a single instance
of a single database. The first step was to arrive at a
consensus concerning a vendor, and, according to Davies,
?the majority of trusts agreed on Oracle.?

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