ICS Computing Wins Major ESR Payroll Services Contract with Pennine Care NHS Trust

New ESR Payroll System Set to Achieve Major Cost-Savings

ICS Computing has been awarded a major new three-year contract to provide pension and payroll 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 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'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 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 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

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For pictures or further information contact: Trish Whitham, ICS Computing, 01635 580802 / 07974 916954 [email protected]

Notes to editors:
* Six Sigma is a business management strategy which seeks to identify and remove the causes of defects and errors in business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction or profit increase).

ICS Computing
ICS Computing Ltd is the UK's largest, privately owned provider of payroll services, offering outsourced payroll, HR and payroll software and HR and payroll consultancy services. Established in 1967 the company has experience in providing services and software to customers in every sector across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Accreditations include HMRC, Six Sigma, ISO 9001, ISO 27001, EFQM Excellence and Investors in People www.icspayroll.co.uk

Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health and specialist substance misuse services to a population of almost 1.2 million people throughout the Boroughs of Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, Stockport and Tameside & Glossop. Pennine Care has 5 main Trust sites at the following hospitals - Tameside, Fairfield, Royal Oldham, Birch Hill and Stepping Hill. www.penninecare.nhs.uk

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