NHS trust trims paper from finance processes

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is working towards paperless financial processes using digital imaging and archiving.

The trust has rolled out a system supplied by Version One for invoice payments and supplies, and is implementing the software across its accounts receivable function.

‘We are very definitely working towards making the department as paperless as it is possible to be,’ said head of financial services David Hay.

Incoming documents are scanned, archived and then disposed of, while outgoing documents are created, archived and formatted for delivery.

‘Prior to implementing the system in the payments department we had a process that involved a complicated paper chase around the organisation,’ said Hay.

‘We pay more than 190,000 invoices a year, which previously had to go out for approval to our seven sites across the city as pieces of paper. We now have a scanned image that is received immediately, and people have the option to approve, reject or query it online.’

Hay says cost savings are another benefit, and the imaging system already in place provided a return on investment within 12 months.

‘Since installation we have cut our stationery and postage costs by £14,000 a year, and a further £10,000 from not needing to archive on microfilm,’ he said.

This represents up to 20 per cent of the finance department’s operations budget.

‘I would be a liar if I said we did this for environmental reasons, but now that we’ve done it we are seeing a tangible reduction of paper use,’ said Hay.

He says the biggest challenge to implementation was cultural resistance to approving documents in electronic form.

‘Some people don’t feel that they have done something properly unless it’s on paper,’ he said.

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Further reading:

Firms must not paper over cracks