Change and Transformation in the Public Sector
A complex, time-critical digital transformation of Scotland’s national urgent care service – replacing ageing technology, insourcing core operations, and delivering a modern digital platform for six million people, on time, within budget, and without a single moment of disruption to live patient services.
The Problem
NHS 24 is Scotland’s national provider of remote healthcare services. As well as running the 111 urgent care service, it delivers NHS Inform, Scotland’s primary source of online health information, the Mental Health Hub, and a range of specialist clinical pathways, all relied upon by six million people across Scotland, 365 days a year.
By 2023, the organisation faced a burning platform. Two major managed service contracts were ending in 2025, covering the core Contact Centre and Customer Relationship Management (CC/CRM) system, Infrastructure and Service Management. The organisation was clear that simply replacing like-for-like would be a missed opportunity.
NHS 24 chose to use the opportunity. Alongside the necessary technology refresh, the programme set out to digitise workflows, resolve long-standing operational issues, improve data sharing across the system, open up OMNI-channel access for patients, and lay the foundations for genuine transformation of clinical and business processes. In short, implementing something that would allow them to execute their strategy, not just something that would keep the lights on.
NHS 24 still bore the scars from a troubled systems implementation in 2015. That experience was not forgotten by the Board, by Scottish Government, or by the Programme team.
The Approach
NHS 24 brought in an independent Programme Director with direct prior experience of the organisation and a track record of complex public sector delivery. The consultancy led the programme across a series of connected workstreams including the replacement of the core CC/CRM platform with Pega CRM and AWS Amazon Connect, bringing the Service Management activities in-house including the Service Desk and Major Incident Management, and replacing the core infrastructure.
Delivery was structured around fixed contractual deadlines. Missing them would have meant costly extensions and further lock-in to legacy arrangements, spending to stand still. A phased pilot with NHS Ayrshire & Arran was recommended before national rollout, allowing NHS 24 to test and refine the new platform in a live environment before committing to full-scale deployment. Governance was direct and transparent, with weekly programme boards, Stage Gate controls, and RAG reporting into the Programme Steering Group.
The Outcome
The programme completed on time and within its approved funding envelope. The new Pega and AWS CC/CRM platform is now live nationally. Core service management functions are running in-house. An Azure Data Warehouse and Power BI reporting capability has been implemented.
A comprehensive learning strategy covered close to 2,000 staff, with competence and confidence at go-live exceeding all expectations.
The stated programme benefits have been achieved, including a significant reduction in time to answer, material reductions in discontinued calls and unplanned downtime, shorter patient journey times, and significant recurring annual savings. Patient experience scores remain consistently high throughout.
Most importantly, the transition was completed without disruption to live patient services, and NHS 24 now has a modern, flexible platform to build future services on, rather than one it was simply trying to keep alive.
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