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Scanning company operates to stop the paper chase at hospital charity
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19/07/2009 |
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| A West Midlands company has eased the workload of charity finance staff in London after digitally scanning many thousands of paper documents.
Quantor of Maybrook Road, Brownhills, Walsall, did the work on behalf of The Charing Cross, Hammersmith and Queen Charlotte’s Hospitals’ Charitable Fund. That charity managed £30m of funds with income and expenditure of £3m each year. Money is spent on improving the amenities and welfare of both patients and staff and also on medical research. The charity is legally obliged to keep documents for a minimum of six years, although some date back a lot further, and some have to be held in perpetuity. New documents arrive every day and have to be processed or acted upon. Only one copy of each file was available and subject to risk from fire, flood or other loss. Security and space limitations were other factors to be considered. Specialists Quantor were called in to help deal with the mounting mass of paperwork because of their expertise in scanning and converting documents into digital format. Quantor took the contents from 230 A4 ring binders, each containing at least 500 sheets of information plus associated receipts and other paper attachments, totalling 116,967 pages in all. Each was scanned and indexed separately for income and expenditure and all the information archived onto a number of CDs for instant reference and retrieval via computer, all with backup for added security. Another benefit is that this information can also be transferred to other record systems in the future. Russell Shea, deputy finance director of Imperial College Healthcare Charity, which now looks after the charitable trusts of four hospitals following a merger with St Mary’s Paddington, was delighted with Quantor’s achievement. “It’s made a tremendous difference to our work,” he said. “All the information is now easily at hand without the need for massive storage or sifting through files. “It’s made our work quicker, easier and the records are more transparent for auditing purposes.” Quantor was pleased to cut down on the paper chase at the charity. Director Robert Duffy said: “We were delighted to be able to provide a solution to fit the budget and requirements of the Trust.” |
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