Future NHS Workforce Solution Transformation Programme

Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

Record date: 31 March 2026

Whole-life cost: Not disclosed
Published schedule: 02/01/2020 – 28/02/2031
NISTA delivery confidence: Not disclosed
Senior responsible owner: Jeff Pasternack

What the project is for

The Electronic Staff Record is a single workforce management tool for the NHS offering an "end to end" solution during NHS employment. ESR provides salary payments and other pay related remuneration to over 1.9 million employees, circa 5% of the working population in England and Wales. The Programme will deliver a transformed workforce solution for the NHS. The primary drivers are: - Expiry of the current contract for the provision of ESR in August 2026 (extension from August 2025 - August 2026 to facilitate an appropriate transition window; enabling the safe take on of the existing service by the supplier of the new agreement); - The end of premium support for the Oracle eBS software from 2035; - The need to transform the existing solution to provide a modernised digital service to end users coupled with the accurate and timely provision of workforce data.

Departmental delivery commentary

Exempt under Section 43 - Commercial interests

Schedule

Exempt under Section 43 - Commercial interests

Cost

Exempt under Section 43 - Commercial interests

Benefits

Compared to financial year 2024/25-Q4, the project’s departmentally agreed benefits have increased. This is because the programme’s benefits case has been refined, and an updated position was included in the Full Business Case (FBC), which was approved in September 2025. This approval established a new baseline. Both cash-releasing and non-cash-releasing benefits will be realised by user organisations. These benefits primarily relate to: User experience Interoperability Data insights They represent incremental improvements on top of the existing benefits delivered by the current ESR service solution.