Being a Digital Exemplar meant significant investment in digital maturity, creating demand for the in-house team to deliver on a range of projects. WUTH needed a partner with the skills and knowledge to work alongside the Trust team to develop configurations for their EPR system with minimal supervision. They had tried bringing in individual contractors, but that created work for the development team just inducting and managing them. Recruitment of such skills on a fixed-term basis is complex and expensive. Keeping the team fully utilised throughout the programme can also be an issue as they are part of a complex programme which could stall at times.

This new arrangement was a service which allowed us to create specific individual deliverables for which a scope of work was agreed against the requirement statement. The St Vincents team delivered the product, unit tested and ready to be integrated into broader workflows. WUTH only paid for what was delivered, and the team involved could be kept at total capacity by working for more than one client. They did not have to recruit individuals nor bring them up to speed. The benefits of the scheme were:

• New functionality and enhancements are delivered faster
• optimisation of the solution through iteration of the products as they were developed
• Helped to improve perception and take-up of technology
• In-house IT teams could focus on other priorities
• Accelerated the Trust’s GDE journey and its progress on Digital Maturity
• Helped to avoid skills shortages and recruitment issues