Trustmarque saves money in Herefordshire

VAR's latest six-week shared service contract will save the council and NHS Trust more than £1m

Trustmarque is celebrating after helping Herefordshire NHS and Council save £1m over six years with the implementation of a shared service strategy based on Microsoft software.

Back in 2009 the two public sector organisations embarked on a project to share functions such as HR, finance and IT across a number of organisations including Herefordshire Council, Herefordshire PCT, the new Wye Valley NHS trust, schools, GP practices and community hospitals.

The main driver was cost cutting and reducing overheads – and introducing more flexible ways of working such as hot-desking and remote working, requiring a robust software asset management strategy and licensing deal in place.

Alicia Bolger, ICT operations manager for the council and NHS ICT shared services, said: “It would have been ambitious to deliver this type of programme in six months, and we only had six weeks. It was critical that we kept to these timescales as we would have fallen out of our software assurances on some of our agreements if we had not acted fast.

“Also, if we had gone beyond 1 April, we would not have been able to backdate the NHS licences. It really was a phenomenal effort that Trustmarque was able to keep within the timeframe specified.”