For people across Scotland seeking urgent or out-of-hours healthcare support, NHS 24 is often the first point of contact. That makes its digital transformation more than a technology upgrade. It is a test of whether CRM can help people access the right care faster, with less repetition and less stress, at moments when they may be worried or vulnerable.
As NHS 24 Scotland’s Deputy CEO Dr. Jacqui Hepburn explained in an interview with CX Today, the organization’s role is fundamentally about helping people navigate healthcare more easily.
It’s a framing that should draw the attention of CX leaders far beyond healthcare. CRM transformation is often discussed in terms of platforms, workflows, integrations and automation. But NHS 24’s experience shows that the more important question is whether those capabilities improve the outcome for the person using the service.
As Hepburn put it:
“People shouldn't have to navigate a complex health system themselves or repeat their story as they move between services.”
From System Replacement to Service Redesign
Changing patient expectations and growing healthcare pressures meant that NHS 24 Scotland needed to move beyond technology systems that were increasingly difficult to adapt.
The challenge was not simply that the old systems were reaching end of life. It was that patients wanted more connected services, Hepburn explained.
“This transformation was about an organizational transformation. It wasn't just about upgrading our IT.”
That required treating CRM transformation as a redesign of the patient journey, rather than a back-office IT project.
“It wasn't just about the technology, it was about designing our services around the patient journey, making it easier, faster, and more connected, but really importantly ensuring that it remains safe, resilient and available around the clock.”
If a technology upgrade program simply digitizes existing processes, it risks preserving the same customer friction in a newer interface. NHS 24 Scotland instead used the transformation to step back and reassess how services worked from the patient’s point of view.
The organization’s CRM platform is built on Amazon Web Services, clinical decision-making support called CRE and Pegasystems. “Pega has helped us provide a really low-code platform, and what that's enabled us to do is bring together workflows, case management, automation and business roles into a single environment,” Hepburn explained.
“And that enables us to develop our services using that flexible technology because we know that today, and also looking forward, that healthcare is really changing at pace, and we really needed a platform that evolved clinical pathways, met our operational requirements, and also thought up strategically about how digital and data within the healthcare system will change and as government policy changes over years to come.”
The Guiding Principle: Patient Benefit First
One of the clearest takeaways from NHS 24 Scotland’s approach is that the buying and implementation decisions were anchored in patient benefit. That principle became the test for every decision.
“Every decision that we made came back to ‘how does this improve the experience, safety, or outcome for our patients who rely on NHS 24,” Hepburn said.
This is where many CRM projects drift. Organizations often begin with valid internal goals: improving efficiency, reducing handling times, consolidating systems, or increasing automation. But if those goals become the program’s center of gravity, the customer can become secondary.
NHS 24’s transformation focused instead on “the principle of designing services around our patient journey rather than around organizational structures or historic processes.”
