It should also be noted that the ICB does a great deal of work in partnership with partner organisations across Hertfordshire and west Essex. This can involve providing funding to support posts in those partner organisations, or additional work being done for the Integrated Care System by staff employed and funded by partner organisations. Only posts ‘hosted’ by Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB are included in this document.
Finally- it should be noted that Hertfordshire and west Essex is the ‘host’ employer of staff that work for HBLICT. They provide services across a number of healthcare organisations (including a very large number of GP surgeries, a community Trust and a Mental Health Trust) on a not for profit basis.
Staffing structure and costsHBL ICT Shared Services
Constitution
HBL ICT Shared Services was formed in 2014 as a non-profit making organisation to provide ICT services to four member NHS organisations:
- Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB
- Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB
- Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust
- Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust.
HBL ICT operates as a partnership founded by four organisational principles:
- Shared ownership: equality within the partnership. No dominant member organisation
- Shared costs: apportioned by service utilisation and via activity-based costing model
- Shared risks: risk factors associated to financial contribution, mitigated by economies of scale
- Shared benefits: enterprise services for all member organisations, delivered at scale
As HBL ICT does not have its own legal status it has to be hosted by one of its member organisation. From its inception, hosting responsibility has been with East and North Herts CCG, which transferred to the new ICB on 1 July 2022. All legal and statutory obligations for HBL ICT is provided by the host Organisation. This includes staff employment, all financial accounting, corporate governance and direct line management of the Managing Director of HBL ICT. The Manging Director reports directly into the HWE ICB Board of Directors. The financial cost of organisational hosting is funding by HBLICT as an overhead cost to the shared service.
Hosting responsibility is reviewed periodically. It can be transferred to any one of the member organisations with agreement from the other organisations.
Organisational Structure
HBL ICT is made up of 113 staff across five functional areas. Staff are directly employed by HWE ICB as the host organisation.