The brief
Concerns were raised by an NHS Commissioner that IT equipment may not be properly accounted for and deployed to GP Practices. They requested an urgent review of the IT records, ‘bond’ and stock warehouses (across the South East Region) maintained by their outsource partner to review their records and physically count and verify existence of the IT assets.
Instead of randomly selecting sites and warehouses to be reviewed an analytical review was undertaken to compare the levels of stock held, deployments to GP practices and purchases. The sites selected for review were the ones which showed anomalies and unexplained trends.
The outcome
The review noted significant differences in IT equipment purchased, deployed and held in stock. This resulted in an improvement contractual notice being issued by the NHS Commissioner to the contractor/outsource partner. Internal Audit were able to share with the contractor the differences identified and this informed their rectification project and action plan. A follow up of the review actions was carried out and this noted that significant improvements had been made.
The Chief Finance Officer and the Audit Committee welcomed the results of the review. The CFO stated the following:
‘Fantastic job, Thanks so much’. ‘Please can I thank TIAA once more for the audit it was a fabulous piece of work, very responsive to an urgent need’