The best examples of digital transformation in the public sector and NHS are being celebrated today as the NDL Community Awards winners are unveiled.
Organisations and Trusts across the country have participated in the awards, which recognise the best use of transformational technologies with social purpose.
Following a virtual ceremony, this year’s winners and highly commended have received a donation to a charity of their choice. The nominations include a diverse range of innovative projects that demonstrate the best use of digital transformation technologies including automation, mobile apps and eForms to help overcome some of the biggest challenges being faced by public services today.
At a time when the NHS and public sector is under enormous pressure, the awards shine a spotlight on excellence and the teams and organisations that are going above and beyond to improve the lives of citizens as well as of those that are delivering our much-needed services.
NDL is a UK SME software company that works with the public sector for the public good. Its awards are designed to share best practice so that similar challenges being faced elsewhere can be overcome more easily, and to recognise the innovative use of automation and digital tools to better design and deliver public services and provide better patient care.
Tom Wright, Head of Digital Engagement at NDL said: “We have been astounded at the entries we have received, and the incredible achievements being made by public service and NHS teams. At this extraordinarily difficult time, our public services and the NHS are needed more than ever, and it is our privilege to work closely with those teams that are designing and delivering technology-led solutions to some of the biggest administrative challenges. The finalists were carefully selected following a lengthy deliberation by our judges, we’d like to congratulate our winners again on their success.”
THE WINNERS
Changing Lives Award – Swindon Borough Council
Swindon Borough Council has been awarded the Changing Lives Award for the innovative approach it has taken to ensure that children can access free school meals following an increase in demand of 2000%.
Understanding the financial difficulties that families in its jurisdiction are facing, the emerging technologies team developed a strategy that used a digital solution to eradicate manual processes where appropriate, enabling the team to achieve previously unattainable speeds for the processing of requests – achieving a 98% efficiency increase. Its robotic process automation solution enabled the team to handle the surge in applications as more families entered the benefits system, ensuring that they could access much needed support and that children were provided with vital nutrition. The turnaround time for parents and carers was reduced by 66%, which also helped to provide reassurance at a difficult time.
Caring and Sharing Award – University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust
Following the successful digitisation of the Covid-19 Antibody and Swab Testing Service, the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded the Caring and Sharing Award for actively sharing best practice with other departments and Trusts.
The digitisation project has utilised eForms to enable the trust to save 2,000 administrative hours in just three months and has allowed them to rapidly scale up testing capacity. It is now on trajectory to be the best performing hospital in the North West within the SIREN study and is reporting 100% of positive results, and 95% of negative results, within 24 hours. Nearly all time-intensive administration has been replaced with a suite of smart tools designed to ease patient engagement and improve their experience, receiving excellent patient feedback.
Driving Value – Warwickshire County Council
Awarded the Digital Value Award for its ambitious transformational journey, Warwickshire County Council has developed a suite of applications to benefit departments across the council by utilising mobile apps.
From highways to social care, over 500 members of staff from departments across the council have benefited from the digital transformation. The scale of the project has improved efficiency, provided better data accuracy, increased return on investment and improved both staff and customer satisfaction.
Digital Project of the Year – Mobile Apps & eForms – Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded the Digital Project of the Year – Mobile Apps & eForms Award for its Covid-19 Contingency Planning Hub.
The planning hub was created in response to the pandemic as an internal information hub to coordinate the Trust’s 4,500 members of staff delivering well over 100 clinical services in a wide range of community settings throughout Birmingham and West Midlands. It enabled the team to rapidly scale-up and re-strategize its service delivery to provide the very best care for patients in the region.
The hub liberated information, collected through eForms for better decision making and quicker action, equating to a saving of approximately £200,000 of public money and thousands of hours across the organisation.
Digital project of the Year – Automation – Medway Council
Having saved between 50,000 and 70,000 administrative hours in just two months, Medway Council has been awarded the NDL Digital Project of the Year – Automation Award for its use of robotic process automation in its data migration in Revenues and Benefits.
This large-scale project involved the data migration of over 6 million files which, had it been done manually, would have taken a single worker working consistently at maximum efficiency over 30 years to complete.
For more information about NDL customer projects and outcomes, visit www.ndl.co.uk/NEWS-EVENTS/Case-Studies to access a library of public sector case studies or contact [email protected].
