Trust wins award for innovative robotic automation project | News

_{Pictured: David Swyer, Digital Programme Manager (right) and Damian Williams, Junior Project Manager (left) collect the award on behalf of Mid Yorkshire.}

The implementation of an innovative robotic automation project by The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust has won a top prize at a prestigious public sector awards.

The Trust, together with supply partner NDL Software, scooped the bronze award honour at the Public Sector Transformation Awards 2022 for the delivery of their Robotic Process Automation (RPA) project, which saw the deployment of four high impact processes across the Trust.

RPA is used to automate repetitive, manual and time-consuming rule-based tasks, or to establish a fully automated end-to-end process, with the aid of a software robot – often referred to as a ‘bot’.

The RPA project was a finalist in the Efficiency and Effectiveness category, which rewards those who have harnessed the real potential in their organisation, delivered elevated performance, created efficiencies and shown the ability to adapt in a virus-fuelled environment, and achieve fantastic results in doing so.

Working alongside NDL Software, the Trust kickstarted its RPA project with four successful pilot processes. Utilising NDL’s RPA platform, Mid Yorkshire has revolutionised key processes for an impressive catalogue of ‘quick-wins’. These processes were identified as experimental starting points, allowing the opportunity to gauge RPA’s effectiveness within the organisation and its contribution to digital transformation.

The success of each process within the initial RPA project has provided their own unique benefits, which has resulted in Mid Yorkshire pursuing further robotic automation projects as part of its continued digital innovation.

Gareth Cinnamon, Digital Programme Manager at The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Robotic process automation is a key element of digital development for the Trust. It can bring benefits to patient safety and data quality, and enable time and financial savings, helping to transform working efficiencies. RPA can help services to help themselves by automating – and improving – processes and releasing staff time. This enables less time to be spent on menial tasks and a greater focus to be placed on other added value priorities. The successful delivery of RPA has been an impressive achievement, and the potential for further RPA implementation across the Trust is an exciting opportunity.”

The Public Sector Transformation Awards celebrate and share the most innovative practice in transforming local public services, and reward UK public sector organisations for their efforts in improving and transforming local public services. The annual event is organised by the Improvement and Efficiency Social Enterprise (iESE), the public sector transformation partner, whose aim is to of identify, foster and deliver improvements and efficiencies across the public sector.

The winners were announced at a hybrid awards ceremony event held in London, which was also streamed live online, on 9 March.