Computing Awards: Public Sector Project of the Year shortlist

Computing Awards for Excellence: Public Sector Project of the Year - The Shortlist

Businesslink.gov.uk

The publication of comprehensive guidance on international trade on the Business Link web site marked the first phase of the organisation’s international trade single window project.

The guidance presents consolidated information from UK government departments and trade associations, using simple guides and interactive tools.

Users can now access one central point of information, without having to be passed between helplines to receive fragmented advice.

The project helps the 150,000 UK businesses already involved in international commerce to trade successfully and comply with regulations. The service is also a valuable source of information for domestic businesses hoping to expand internationally.

The online guidance had attracted more than 33,000 visitors by June this year.

Dorset County Council

Dorset County Council’s corporate electronic documentation and records management system has replaced 2.5 miles of paper with 36,000 electronic documents.

Protecting the authenticity of records is particularly important to the council’s highways division, which has accumulated 8,500 electronic records in six months and is set to become the largest user of the system.

“Our electronic documents are able to be produced in a court of law as a valid alternative to paper,” said Paul Moon, the council’s highways system manager.
Dorset has been identified by the National Archives as a centre of excellence for records and information management within local authorities.

Glasgow City Council

Glasgow City Council (GCC) has replaced its multiple purchase ordering systems with a streamlined process across all nine departments.

“The development of a consistent approach to the management of services across the council has produced results that have exceeded everyone’s expectations,” said John Sherry, head of e-procurement development.

On its first day of operation, the system processed 158 purchase orders, worth £16,197. The e-procurement programme has processed £38m of purchase orders since going live, saving £1m a year in invoice processing.

GCC’s programme can be easily replicated, and the concept could lead to massive local government cost savings if other authorities follow GCC’s example.

Kent and Medway Health Informatics Service

Kent and Medway Health Informatics Service (KMHIS) was formed in 2003 to support NHS staff with technology to improve patient care.

KMHIS has introduced standardised processes, having previously collected no performance data for service level agreements.

The number of calls closed on the same day has risen from 40 per cent to 60 per cent, while the average amount of time required to resolve an incident has halved.
KMHIS has been awarded national accreditation from NHS Connecting for Health, which will bring lower costs when systems such as the Choose and Book appointment booking application are deployed.

NHS Connecting for Health

Connecting for Health’s picture archiving and communications system (Pacs) has replaced the traditional way of storing X-rays and scans on film.

By capturing and archiving images electronically, scans are made available more quickly and are less likely to be lost. Patient exposure to radiation is also limited, as re-imaging is less likely to become necessary.

Pacs also allows better diagnosis, as clinicians can consult with experts over the same image.

“This is one of the most enabling pieces of technology I’ve dealt with in my career,” said Dr Robin Evans of Mayday NHS Trust.

In the south of England, trusts are saving an average of £1.56 per examination, over an average of 150,000 examinations a year.

Northumbria 101 Partnership

The Northumbria 101 partnership is a collaborative initiative to provide citizens with easy access to various non-emergency services 24/7, via a simple three-digit number ­ 101.

The service is multilingual and available to 1.4 million people, and can accommodate additional contact centres and partners without affecting the existing infrastructure.

Information can be shared and centrally updated, allowing organisations such as the police and local authorities to work in partnership without duplicating tasks.

Northumbria 101 handled more than 50,000 calls in its first six months and has received an 86 per cent customer satisfaction rating, according to an independent Home Office survey.

Pharmaceutical Oncology Initiative Partnership

Pharmaceutical Oncology Initiative Partnership is a collaboration of 12 leading pharmaceutical companies. The partnership’s chemotherapy planning oncology resource tool (C-port) is the first initiative to apply advanced modelling techniques to tackle chemotherapy capacity planning.

Cutting-edge simulation forecasts various elements of a patient’s care ­ patients will benefit from shorter waiting times and better access to new therapies.

“I strongly recommend that cancer networks and their stakeholders use this tool to improve forward planning for cancer drugs,” said national cancer director Professor Mike Richards.

Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA)

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) started to see the business benefits of the joint personnel administration (JPA) project within months of its launch.

JPA has delivered an improved service reducing administration and allowing the reassignment of a greater share of defence budget to operations. It is one of the world’s largest implementations of Oracle’s application software, using a large proportion of the suite to accommodate the MoD’s unique requirements.

Remote secure system access is available worldwide to personnel on land, at sea or on operational duties.

Before accessing the system, 300,000 members of the armed forces received online training on JPA via an innovative online training package.

For more information on all the shortlists visit www.computing.co.uk/awards, where you can also find details of how to book a table for the awards ceremony.