London trust seeks ‘fin’ to outdated financial processes

A London NHS trust has called on FinTech players to help it upgrade its health finance systems.

Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has made an appeal to companies “that can pragmatically impact financial operations in a real-world NHS setting” beyond clinical processes.

In particular, the trust wants to hear from FinTech firms that have market-ready products that can help transform operations in the fields of transactional processes, MI and reporting, customer and supplier services, and risk management.

This could include technologies that make use of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, chatbots and blockchain to improve the efficiency of Chelsea and Westminster’s financial operations by reducing reliance on manual processes.

Solutions must be ready for deployment or otherwise be adaptable to healthcare settings.

Sandra Easton, chief financial officer at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This is an incredibly exciting initiative for us. We are proud to be a forward-thinking Trust with innovation being a key area of our work, beyond our clinical operations.

“We are really looking forward to working with companies to improve our financial operations but also see scope in expanding this to HR and procurement.”

FinTech is of growing interest to healthcare organisations looking to streamline outdated – and often cumbersome – financial processes.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust recently implemented VirtualStock’s Edge4health, a digital procurement platform designed to simplify the NHS supply chain and cut waste.

“Virtualstock are pleased to see that C+W [Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust] are encouraging innovation from different sectors to improve NHS systems,” a VirtualStock spokesperson told Digital Health News.

“As an organisation that has already used our proven experience in retail to develop a leading digital procurement platform especially for the NHS, we are encouraged to see other sectors being invited to tackle some of the NHS’s biggest challenges.”

Chelsea and Westminster launched the appeal alongside charity arm, CW+, which has previously supported campaigns to transform patient care.

In 2016/17, CW+ recruited over 4,500 patients into more than 200 research projects.

Chris Chaney, chief executive at CW+, said: “Our innovation strategy has so far focused on improving patient outcomes, so we are delighted to be exploring this new area with the Trust.

“The potential impact of tapping into exciting fintech innovation in the NHS is significant, which we hope the wider healthcare sector will also benefit from.”

The campaign seeks input from finance technology start-ups, SMEs and larger corporations.

The trust is particularly eager to hear from FinTech firms that can demonstrate “a strong London presence, an ability to integrate with existing IT systems, ability to address more than one call theme, a record of disruption in any industry and willingness to approach collaborations in a strategic, creative and partnership-oriented way.”

Companies have until 2 September 2018 to submit an expression of interest, which they can do here.