NHS Shared Business Services Acquires McKesson Shared Services

Acquisition enables NHS SBS to extend its employment services support to the NHS

Leading business support specialist NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has acquired McKesson Shared Services (MSS), the outsourced HR, Payroll and Pensions service of McKesson UK, for an undisclosed sum.

The move will enable NHS SBS to extend the reach of its established successful employment services, which achieve an average of 30% cost savings for NHS clients and greater efficiency by freeing-up in-house teams from the administration of time-consuming tasks.

Currently, NHS SBS’s employment services division works in partnership with 82 NHS organisations to deliver functions such as payroll, pensions, recruitment , HR administration and registration authority services.

Through the acquisition of MSS, NHS SBS will operate a further 44 employment services contracts.

NHS SBS, a 50/50 joint venture between the Department of Health and IT specialist Sopra Steria, introduced a payroll and pensions service soon after it was established in 2005. In 2013 the organisation expanded the employment services to include recruitment, helping clients remain compliant when recruiting new staff.

Prior to the acquisition, the NHS SBS employment services division processed more than two million payroll transactions each year with 99.9% accuracy and enabled NHS clients to implement change smoothly. For instance, in the lead-up to auto enrolment of workforce pensions, NHS SBS became the ‘go-to’ expert for clients, and ensured staging dates were met successfully.

David Morris, NHS SBS managing director commented: "This strategic acquisition complements our existing service provision particularly as MSS mirrors our own approach of working closely in partnership with clients to help them achieve greater efficiency rather than the function being merely a commodity transaction.

"In the face of immense budgetary pressures and tight resources, it is vital that NHS business support functions such as recovering overpayments, processing the monthly payroll run or processing expenses payments are carried out smoothly and accurately. We have already proven our capabilities in this respect and now with this acquisition we can broaden the support we provide across the NHS that can ultimately free-up more funds and resource for frontline care."

About NHS SBS: NHS Shared Business Services is the market leader in business support services for the NHS. NHS SBS provides Finance & Accounting, Employment Services, Procurement and Primary Care Services, delivering operational efficiencies and improved service quality as well as real cost savings, on average 30%, for our NHS clients.

Established in 2005, NHS SBS is a 50/50 joint venture between the Department of Health and Sopra Steria Limited. The organisation now provides financial services to 100% of all NHS Commissioning organisations and a range of business support services for around 50% of NHS Provider Trusts.

NHS SBS currently employs over 1,600 people who bring a unique mix of NHS and commercial expertise. We now process over £170 billion of NHS payments each year and pay 290,000 NHS employees. The organisation has also identified more than £350 million procurement savings opportunities.

NHS SBS is on-course to achieve £1 billion of cost savings to the NHS by 2020, having achieved its original 10-year target of £224 million of cost savings, a year earlier than planned in 2014.

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