Green Light for New Shared Services Authority

The NHS Shared Services Initiative, which is responsible for shared NHS financial services, the finance and e-commerce project and the development of the electronic staff record, has received approval to establish itself as a special health authority.

The new authority will come into being in April 2003. The announcement about the change of status says the size and complexity of the shared services work programme requires management by a legally established body, not least to provide long term governance and accountability arrangements.

“This cannot be delivered by the Shared Services Taskforce because, by its very nature, a taskforce is a transient body. Therefore the legal status of the Shared Services Initiative needs to be reviewed and changed,” says the announcement.

The Shared Service initiative and its successor authority are seen as an important component of the NHS modernisation process. In essence, the shared services programme is tasked with finding way of harnessing the best information technology to make back office functions – such as finance, HR, payroll and procurement – work smarter.

The new authority will manage the shared services systems contracts and their development on behalf of the wider NHS, and be responsible to the NHS for them. These include some of the largest IT contracts awarded in the health service. There will be a direct relationship between the new Shared Services HA and each of the Strategic Health Authorities around performance management issues, and performance standards in particular.