Case Study: East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust achieves 75% faster GP referral processing and £220,000 annual savings with SS&C Blue Prism

Digital Workers Free NHS Staff Time and Patients Benefit

East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) faced a major administrative burden after the NHS “paper switch-off”: roughly 2,000 GP referrals per week, each taking about 20 minutes to collate, scan and upload, which tied up medical assistants and cost the Trust about £220,000 annually. To modernize the process, ESNEFT engaged SS&C Blue Prism to apply intelligent automation (Blue Prism digital workers) to its referral workflow.

SS&C Blue Prism deployed digital workers to monitor incoming eRS referrals, extract the referral reason and supporting clinical information, merge everything into a single PDF, securely upload it into ESNEFT’s administrative systems and pass cases to consultants. The automation reduced processing time from 20 to 5 minutes per referral, freed 500+ hours of staff time for direct patient care, and delivered around £220,000 in organizational savings.

East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust