Introduction

The successful and sustained implementation of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and wider automation capabilities, presents an incredible opportunity to make a meaningful difference in delivering improved patient care, enhanced staff experience and increased process efficiency across the NHS and social care.

One of the Secretary of State’s missions is to tackle the impact of the pandemic on waiting lists by building a more efficient healthcare system through rapid digital transformation. Automating mundane and repetitive tasks, such as patient registration and data uploads, will save time on administrative work, which then enables staff to redirect their expertise to more value-added tasks and spend more time with patients.

Automation, specifically RPA, as a transformation enabler can accelerate the adoption of digital technologies within health and care. This technology can play a key role in elective recovery by freeing up capacity and significantly improving productivity and efficiency in the NHS and social care.

We are delighted to have developed this first ever national guidance in partnership with Atos, to support you in your automation journey. In this guidance, we share good practice on planning and delivering RPA solutions, how to sustain delivery and key considerations with regard to clinical safety, and standards that should be a key feature of all RPA programmes. We hope this guidance enable organisations to not only consider RPA as a technical solution, but as a tool that is part of a wider transformation agenda, with our people at its centre, that can support the digital transformation of service design and delivery.

Our mission is to continue to support you in your digital transformation journey by providing the right tools and encouraging discussions locally, depending on where you are today in your RPA journey. We hope this guidance acts as a valuable resource as you start or continue to deliver outstanding, digitally enabled care to the NHS and social care.