The Royal Free London's (RFL) innovation and intelligent automation team were presented with the Best Healthcare Provider Partnership Award alongside software company Blue Prism at the HSJ Partnership Awards last night.

The award was recognition of their innovative and collaborative partnership in the past year which saw them deliver the value of automation to more than 45 organisations, including shared services and clinical departments across the NHS, with a focus on making processes more efficient and releasing staff time that would otherwise have been spent on repetitive and burdensome administration tasks.

The RFL's innovation team has been able to save more than 300,000 hours worth of time for 45 Trusts across the country automating more than 200 processes across a variety of departments, releasing clinical time and capacity to allow staff to focus on patient care.

Whilst time release was a large focus for the partnership some of the most impactful automations are around reduced risk. One automated process recently developed supports ITU patient discharge and medication transfer, preventing serious harm that could occur from omissions of this data.

This success is being replicated across multiple Trusts, demonstrating the immense possibilities that come from working together in partnership with other NHS organisations.

Judges praised the project and commented: "This category had some incredibly high-quality entrants, however the sheer scale and scope of this work was the clear winning example of a true working partnership. With 45 NHS organisations involved and delivering over 300,000 repurposed hours, this model is an exciting new blueprint for innovation which will herald true benefits for the NHS in the years to come."

Pic: RFL innovation team at the HSJ Partnership Awards receiving their award from comedian and brodcaster, Tom Allen