ASSET MANAGEMENT
With NHS resources tight, it is important trusts take adequate steps to monitor their assets. One way of doing this is to use an asset register, saysDavid Swales of West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust.
funds to replace equipment and other as- sets become scarcer. Some NHS bodies, like West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust, are tackling this issue head on.
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Trust assistant director of finance David Swales explained the importance of having an asset register.
He told NHE: “Our trust uses an asset management system, supplied by Real Asset Management, which deals with some of the complexities and vagaries of NHS capital accounting. It is important that the system enables the trust to be compli- ant with International Financial Reporting Standards.
“It allows us to record all of our assets on it, such as buildings, land and equipment. This is very useful, especially in terms of equipment, because you are able to track where that equipment is. It is a database with various bits of information which we are able to interrogate, report on and make calculations from.”
At its most basic level it is a list of every- thing the trust possesses – but then the system allows for far more information to be stored on it.
Swales said: “For any asset you could have a description, when it was purchased and how long it was likely to last for. You are also able to store things like serial num-
58 | national health executive Mar/Apr 11
sset management is set to become more important than ever, as the
bers, along with our asset number so that we can easily track it. It could also contain information about how much an asset had depreciated in value.
“Sometimes an asset takes time to build up and could be made up of a number of sub-assets so this system enables tighter control.”
Whilst many trusts do have systems al- ready in place, it is important that they en- sure that those asset management systems reflect the needs of the modern NHS.
Swales advised: “We did have a system in place before, but it was mainly focused on recording the various maintenance jobs which were being carried out around the trust, but that had a separate section for recording assets. Over time it got to the point that the level of complexity in asset accounting meant that it actually wasn’t very helpful.
“At that point we changed to using a spreadsheet-based system which worked and bought us a little time to have a look around the marketplace for a new system which would work better.
“After having a look at a number of systems, we decided to go ahead with the system we are using now.”
The trust then went ahead transferring all of the data from one system to the new as- set register.
Swales explained: “We had a whole list of data which we then had to get into a par- ticular format to enable it to be easily up- loaded – this involved carrying out various validations to ensure that what went on the register actually reflected the assets we had at the trust.
“There were certain gaps in the information which we had to address, which involved going back and doing a bit of investigation into our past records. But this certainly wasn’t too onerous and actually as soon as all of the information was in the correct format, it was simply a matter of then up- loading the data onto the system.
“I feel that one of the benefits of having a proper fixed asset system is that you can easily update your records. If you buy an asset, you can simply add this to the sys- tem, whereas under the previous system we would do quarterly updates which wasn’t quite as good – this is because you tend to build up issues over the months leading up to that, making the quarterly review a big- ger exercise.
“The system we have now is better because there is a process to add an asset – and that very process means that you gather certain bits of other information. This means that we end up having a lot more comprehen- sive information about our fixed assets.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit
www.wsh.nhs.uk
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