CUSTOMER PROFILE
ABOUT
DHU Healthcare is a not-for-profit, community interest company that provides healthcare services for more than seven million people in the UK. The team works in collaboration with the NHS and healthcare providers to enable seamless access to care for patients. This includes handling an average of 2.4 million calls annually as part of the NHS 111 service from contact centres across the country.
ADVISORS
Started with 999 and increased to 2,250
GOALS
- Eliminate incorrect payments to clinical agencies
- Reduce overtime costs (manual efforts and SMS charges)
- Enable advisors with more flexible holiday and schedule changes
- Increase advisor morale through improved scheduling and EEM
- Drive more accurate forecasting
- Reduce workload for planning and operational teams
- Increased capacity to support additional services due to advanced modelling features
When DHU Healthcare needed to bring clarity and control to its agent scheduling, payments, and management, they turned to NICE. With the #1 global solution for workforce management and expert guidance from NICE Value Realisation Services (VRS), DHU empowered advisors with more flexibility while simultaneously reducing the manual handling in anticipating, scheduling, and meeting significant contact centre demand.
01 THE BEFORE
Missing visibility, control and consistency
Providing frontline services to patients across the UK, DHU Healthcare’s contact centres deal with a high volume of inbound calls, often in scenarios where speed, efficiency and accuracy are critical. In many instances, this depends on a blend of in-house and agency advisors, as well as a great deal of flexibility to respond to changing demands, 24/7.
“Our old processes and technology came with several limitations,” says Adam Paginton, Head of Resource Planning for 111 Services at DHU Healthcare. “One of the biggest challenges was a lack of control and consistency. We didn’t have a way to lock down schedules, so changes were being made sometimes months in the past and without an auditable process. It wasn’t good for planning, advisors, or anyone.”
At the same time, DHU was dealing with a lack of visibility over agent availability and scheduling. Shift patterns and availability were often updated by team managers ad-hoc, making it near impossible to plan, forecast, and deploy advisors effectively.
02 DESIRE TO CHANGE
Taking control
“We had two big concerns,” says Paginton. “First, we were paying to the planned schedules, not necessarily paying to what people work. Second, schedule output was fixed and, we had no way to determine and plan around rotation patterns within availability windows.” We needed to improve both areas, increasing staff morale through flexibility and, ideally, eliminating our more manual processes.”
DHU partnered with NICE to drive its transformation, not just by implementing the world’s most sophisticated WFM solution but, through VRS, also providing expert guidance on process change, flexible schedules, implementation, and adoption. All with a unique focus on the impact of transformation on people: enabling leadership teams to forecast and plan with confidence and advisors to feel motivated and empowered.
03 THE SOLUTION
Leading DHU’s transformation
Through engagement with VRS, DHU got end-to-end guidance on best practice, solving their most urgent challenges, and achieving a successful implementation. The VRS team analysed DHU’s existing processes and legacy platform, uncovering opportunities for measurable, impactful improvement.
“They asked the right questions,” says Paginton. “Their expertise – not just in terms of NICE but also contact centre performance – underpinned the roadmap for our transformation. The direct relationship there was really valuable. We knew what we needed to achieve, but VRS helped us get even more value.”
As a foundation, the new implementation of NICE WFM enables a more structured, systematic approach to timesheets and availability. VRS worked closely with DHU to design a workflow that made sense for HR, finance teams, operational leaders, and advisors alike. This included a Case Study more seamless way for the WFM team to forecast, schedule and plan, paired with increased accessibility for managers. The new role-based access provides greater flexibility in permissions different users have, reducing the number of process inconsistencies and human errors. As an example, the new WFM system allows DHU to lock down schedules and audit any changes made—automatically.
“Without real-time data, I’m fighting a losing battle,” adds Paginton. “I can now easily put my hands on what shifts people are doing or have done. I just couldn’t do that before.”
Crucially, the VRS team took a forward-thinking approach to the transformation. This included a structured roll out plan for WFM and NICE Employee Engagement Manager (EEM), a comprehensive solution for intraday management. Finally, VRS played a key role in supporting DHU to train teams and make this significant change manageable.
“Having the solution is important, but you need to adopt it,” says Paginton. “Everyone needs to understand what it is, why it matters, and what they need to do. I would say it has worked – and now we’re starting to see the system give us back time.”
04 THE RESULTS
Impacting every stakeholder
Engaging VRS means regular checkpoints designed to benchmark success and steer DHU’s transformation over time. Beyond implementing a more structured approach to timesheets, availability and forecasting, DHU quickly reported significant improvements to day-to-day workflows.
For advisors, schedule changes, overtime, holidays, shift swaps and availability tracking are all simplified. The process of scheduling a training session for 800 advisors was transformed from an 18-day process to a five-minute task.
“The time savings make us productive and effective,” adds Paginton. “If something would take days of manual work to update, by the time it is planned in there is no ability to assess the impact. With NICE, we can do everything the right way.”
As a provider of NHS 111 for over 7 million patients, NICE has given DHU the ability to react quickly to unforeseen events like the recent strep A pandemic. David Hurn, Deputy Director of Services confirmed, “NICE allowed us to quickly and easily model the recent large, stepped increase in scarlet fever seen in the UK during late 2022 and understand the impact to the 111 helpline.”
05 THE FUTURE
Continuing a comprehensive transformation
After a successful initial rollout, VRS continues to work with DHU to deliver ongoing improvement. In regular reviews, VRS provides expert analysis of DHU data, uncovering insights on everything that influences metrics and KPIs.
As DHU explores new changes, innovations, or opportunities, VRS provides access to people with first-hand experience. Reference calls related to Personnel Planner and EEM help DHU connect with other customers and ensure everyone benefits from shared expertise and knowledge. DHU also participates in the NICE User Group (NUG), a forum which helps unite customers to share their experience and provide feedback, which is then cycled back into product development.
Today, DHU continues its transformation with ongoing automation across multiple systems and is in the final stages of an EEM launch. With a clearer view of agent availability, holiday, scheduling, and time worked, DHU is poised to respond to new challenges with confidence, even with unprecedented pressure on the UK health service.
