IFMS is now live for Implementation Group 1
IFMS ( a single national Integrated Financial Management and Procurement System) went Live for Implementation Group 1 (IG1) on 3 July as planned, for IG1 service areas (HSE East, Shared Services, National Distribution Centre, Primary Care Reimbursement Service, National Ambulance Service, HSE National and Corporate Services, and Tusla). This represents a significant milestone in what is a major transformation programme for the Irish health sector. The project will equip us with modern technology, standard finance and procurement processes and a new operating model based on shared services.
The new system is for the entire health sector.
We are working in partnership with organisations to bring the new system to:
- all health and social care services provided directly by the HSE, known as statutory services
- voluntary organisations that are exclusively or almost exclusively funded by the HSE, known as Section 38 organisations
- voluntary organisations that receive funding from the HSE, known as Section 39 organisations
- Tusla, the Child and Family Agency
We are replacing multiple, fragmented, non-standard legacy finance systems with one system
The HSE does not have a single financial management and procurement system.
The absence of such a system in the HSE presents additional challenges to the effective operation of the system of internal financial control. Numerous external reviews have reiterated the consensus amongst the finance community in the HSE that the current financial systems are not fit for purpose.
The absence of a single national financial management and procurement system requires that significant work is undertaken manually to ensure that the local finance systems and the national finance reporting solution are synchronised and reconciled. This approach is becoming increasingly challenging in the light of changes to organisational structure and the ageing of the systems.
The system will create many benefits for the health sector.
- Better and more timely financial reporting and forecasting
- Improved financial management, governance, compliance and transparency
- Better overall financial control environment
- IFMS will, for the first time, provide quality standardised financial and procurement information across both statutory and voluntary services, facilitating:
- valid comparison of costs across the entire sector
- a more equitable and evidence-based resource allocation model
- demonstration of value for money to support investment in service development
- leverage the full procurement capacity of the health sector by having quality data at a catalogue item level
- allow/support position-level reporting of pay costs for more than 125k WTE (c. 81k WTE statutory and c. 45k WTE voluntary)
IFMS Project News
IFMS Newsletter Issue 1
IFMS Newsletter Issue 2 .pdf (size 504.9 KB)
Issue-3-IFMS-Project-Newsletter.pdf (size 469.2 KB)
IFMS Shared Services Helpdesks
IFMS-Shared-Services-Helpdesk-Solutions-IG1-Apri-2024--4.pdf (size 1.4 MB)
Find out more about the IFMS Project
If you’d like to get in touch, you can contact us at change.ifms@hse.ie
