NHS 24 modernizes national urgent care without missing a beat

The Business Issue

NHS 24 is Scotland's national provider of urgent and unscheduled care, the organization behind the 111 service, Breathing Space, emergency dental care, and a growing range of digital health platforms. Serving a population of 5.6 million people, NHS 24 handles approximately 1.6 million calls per year. When someone in Scotland needs urgent help, NHS 24 is the front door.

At stake was more than efficiency. NHS 24 needed absolute confidence that its systems would hold up under pressure, adapt when the world changed, and continue to deliver clinically safe outcomes – without disruption to the people relying on them.

NHS 24's contact center and CRM infrastructure had served the organization well – but core contracts were approaching hard end dates with no grace period. The question was never whether to change, but how to do it right. In the meantime, clinical staff were navigating multiple systems during high-pressure patient calls.

As demand grew and the service expanded, the existing infrastructure made it harder to move at the pace they needed. When COVID brought an unprecedented surge in calls, NHS 24 had to adapt quickly. Leadership recognized that incremental fixes couldn't deliver the reliability, safety, or flexibility the service needed for the decade ahead. NHS 24 needed a platform built to evolve.

The Solution

NHS 24 needed a platform that both clinical staff and call handlers could trust under pressure – one system, one source of truth, and guardrails that ensured every patient pathway was safe before it went live. That meant no shortcuts, no bolt-ons, and no going live until the clinical and nursing teams had signed off on every workflow.

To get there, NHS 24 brought together a carefully selected partner ecosystem – Pega as the core orchestration layer, AWS for contact center infrastructure, and Coforge as the prime delivery partner – each chosen for their ability to work as one unified team rather than a collection of separate vendors. From the outset, they made a deliberate choice: build a clinically safe, intuitive platform alongside frontline staff. Clinical leaders, service delivery teams, and partners worked together to co-design workflows that reflect how care is actually delivered.

With Pega Customer Service™ as the core platform, they established a single, unified system to support urgent and unscheduled care across channels – telephony today, with a clear path to expanding digital access over time. Pega’s governed workflows and guardrails gave NHS 24 the confidence to modernize without breaking what already worked.

At every major milestone, the program had to prove it was clinically safe before moving forward. If a solution didn't meet that standard, it didn't proceed, and the team would revisit it until it did. Nothing went live until the clinical and nursing teams had signed off on every patient pathway. Pega's configurability meant the system could be shaped to NHS 24's specific workflows without becoming a brittle, unmaintainable solution – while AWS provided the contact center infrastructure underneath, and Coforge coordinated delivery across the full program.

The Results

NHS 24 went live in October 2025 – on time and on budget – in advance of winter surge. They were later recognized with the Public Sector Innovation award at the ScotlandIS Digital Tech Awards 2026 . The Scottish Government, which provided active support throughout the program, recognized outstanding team members with ministerial letters upon go-live. All services now run on the platform: 111, mental health, cancer treatment helpline, emergency dental, pharmacy, and Breathing Space.

The impact was immediate and measurable. Average handle time dropped by 10 minutes per call. Streamlined processes and a more intuitive interface meant staff could spend less time navigating systems and focus more on having effective and meaningful conversations with patients. The same team can now help more people, more efficiently, without sacrificing clinical quality.

Patients haven't noticed the change. And that's entirely the point, a big win for an organization where continuity of care matters most. Today, NHS 24 has a stable, trusted digital foundation that allows the organization to change safely and operate with confidence.

Most importantly, NHS 24 has created a platform it can build on, not replace. Leaders now have confidence they can adapt pathways, workflows, and services as demand evolves without compromising clinical safety.

As NHS 24 looks ahead, its focus is on using technology to do what has always mattered most: making sure people feel listened to, guided to the right care, and confident in the care they receive.

Results at a glance:
Operational impact:

• Went live October 2025 – on time and on budget
• All NHS 24 services unified under a single platform: 111, mental health, dental, pharmacy, Breathing Space, cancer treatment helpline

Scale & resilience:

• Serving 5.6 million people across Scotland at 99.9% uptime 
• 10-minute reduction in average handle time per call 

Recognition:

• Won Public Sector Innovation, ScotlandIS Digital Tech Awards 2026
• Recognized by Scottish Government ministers for program excellence

Footnote: NHS 24 uses Pega Customer Service™ as the core platform in its contact center and digital transformation program, delivered in partnership with Amazon Connect (AWS) and Coforge.