NHS Business Service Authority (NHSBSA) has won the Efficiency Savings category at the Public Sector Paperless Awards 2019.
NHSBSA delivers a range of national services for the NHS including the processing of prescriptions and payments to pharmacists. The authority has been recognised for its ‘Manage Your Service’ project, the first of its kind to make prescription and patient identifiable data readily available and securely accessible via the internet.
Manage Your Service (MYS) allows pharmacy contractors to securely receive digital images of prescriptions that are being referred back. This speeds up the process as the system gives them the ability to send their responses the same day. It saves paper, time and postage for everyone involved.
Ben Tindale, Digitisation Lead Team Manager at NHSBSA explained: “Every month more than 11,500 pharmacy contractors send us boxes of prescription forms (over 500 million forms per year). We get over a billion prescription items a year, however about 0.1% (1.1 million) of these can’t be processed due to vital information being left off the forms.
“This results in what can be a lengthy process, with the forms being posted back to pharmacy contractors and further details requested. If pharmacy contractors are still unsure of what information is required, then this can cause further delays to their payment.”
When NHSBSA receive items that have been resent with details missing, staff then phone contractors to get hold of the information required. However over 30,000 minutes per month are spent making phone calls to contractors to obtain this information.
Ben added: “MYS has made a big difference by speeding up the process; it has saved a lot of time and money. We are very proud to have been recognised at the Paperless Awards, which honour and encourage digital progress. MYS is not only delivering on NHSBSA’s wider strategic goals of improving services and delivering great results for customers but it is also helping to reduce costs.”