NHS 24 - Strategic Partner supporting the Digital Transformation Strategy and Infrastructure Refresh.

Objectives:

It is NHS 24’s objective to replace the existing CRM and telephony system with a new, reliable and flexible infrastructure platform which can act as an enabler to deliver NHS 24’s strategic ambitions.

The commercial discussions around the new infrastructure will be complex and detailed. Ensuring that NHS 24 achieves value for money is another key objective given the level of public money that will be invested and a full business case will be required.

The existing telephony and CRM system has been in place for over a decade and during that time has been customised and adapted to meet various operational pressures. Unpicking the system and moving onto the replacement infrastructure will need to happen with no interruption to the 24/7 service. Ensuring a smooth exit process will be critical to the success of this work.

The final key objective is around developing the digital and online services that NHS 24 offers incorporating. This would improve the patient journey and widen the choice and opportunities for accessing the care people need. An enormous amount of work is needed to develop the offering in this evolving and fast paced environment.

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Scope of Service:

Focusing on the contact centre, a high level solution map of the requirements taken from the service has been developed. This solution agnostic view will form the basis of the requirements that the new set up will need to deliver. High level requirements have been gathered over the last few months however, no options appraisal or soft market testing has taken place. The solutions map highlights the interrelated nature of the current set up and it is anticipated there will be a need to integrate the replacement technologies.

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A Programme Director would be expected to run the programme and be responsible for the success of the implementation. They would sit on, and integrate with, the Executive Management Team, acting as a critical friend and driving the delivery of the programme. They would bring technical expertise and experience to liaise with potential suppliers, while being able to translate those discussions for the technical people highlighting the key risks and benefits. It is expected the Programme Director would agree the resource requirements from a mix of internal and external resources and develop the delivery plan as soon as possible.

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The ICT and Project Team are focused mainly on the business as usual work. It is anticipated that the digital transformation programme will come to dominate the work across the whole organisation as it moves towards the implementation phase. Developing the in-house teams and ensuring a comprehensive knowledge transfer is a key component of the tender.

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The scope of the work will cover evaluating the existing ICT hardware / infrastructure, software and ICT services that are mainly embedded within two managed service contracts that end October and November 2025. There are practical decisions required as to how best to provide those services going forward including which software is used, particularly, but not exclusively, for a CRM system and the infrastructure it sits on. The strategic partner will support NHS 24 through the end to end process from requirements gathering; developing the full business case; procurement; the end of our existing contract; to implementation and early life support of the new infrastructure. It is anticipated this will be completed by March 2026.