Nuffield Hospitals, is planning on cutting costs and improving efficiency by introducing an electronic procurement process.

The hospital group will implement a document imaging system provided by supplier Version One to carry out electronic form design, automated document delivery and electronic payment.

The system will be integrated into the group's existing system and is currently being implemented across all 40 hospitals.

Nuffield has designed its own purchase orders and remittance advices and will electronically deliver them directly from its procurement and finance system.

Documents will be emailed or automatically sent to the recipient's fax machine. In addition, payments to suppliers will be made electronically using Version One's DbBACS-IP module.

These electronic processes will replace Nuffield's manual processes, which involve signing and posting cheques with hard-copy remittance advices, and the printing-out and faxing of purchase orders.

The new system will dramatically cut the cost of the 800 payments, 800 remittance advices and 800 purchase orders sent out every day.

Printing, stationery and postage costs will also be reduced, making significant savings year on year.

'We identified the need for electronic document management to further streamline our processes and save us time and money,' said Matt Oxley, associate director, procurement and property, at Nuffield Hospitals.

'The savings of time will allow skilled staff to be redeployed so that they can focus on activities where they can add value,' he said.

'As a modern and forward-thinking organisation, we are always looking at ways to further streamline our processes whilst making substantial cost and efficiency savings.'

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Further reading:

Going green with your PC

NHS Trust trims paper from finance process