NHS Blood & Transplant empower employees with a unified service experience

Critical, life-saving healthcare organisation empowers workforce to focus on donor and patient care
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is an essential part of the National Health Service (NHS), providing the blood donation service for England and the organ donation service for the UK. The organisation manages the donation, storage, and transplantation of blood, organs, tissue, bone marrow, and stem cells, and researches new treatments and processes.

NHSBT employs around 5,500 staff across the UK, who work in a wide variety of roles in different settings. These include staff:

• At blood donation centres and mobile blood collection units 
• That liaise with donor families and organ recipients in hospitals 
• Researchers in NHSBT laboratories 
• Members that carry out operational functions such as HR, finance, and facilities management

With a purpose to save and improve lives, supporting the NHSBT workforce is critical to its successful operation. Wendy Dewey, IT Service Manager, NHS Blood and Transplant, explains: “It’s incredibly important that our workforce is empowered to focus its time on the activities that support patients, donors and their families. Delivering the services they need to excel in their roles is essential to our success.”

NHSBT was using the Now Platform^® to deliver a number of services to help employees, such as the IT service desk and HR support, but Wendy knew they were only scratching the surface of what was possible.

“ServiceNow was working for each department, but we had a piecemeal way of using the platform,” explains Wendy. “There were multiple entry points for employees depending on whether they wanted to contact the IT service desk, HR department, or finance, for example. We saw a big opportunity to bring all our services into a single portal on the platform.”

NHSBT unifies the employee service experience with a self-service portal built on ServiceNow
NHSBT launched its new services portal, unifying the employee service experience into a single online destination for any member of staff to get the help or information they needed.

Through a web browser, either on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device, employees can launch the portal to instantly access a range of organisation-wide services, wherever they are.

For example, they can check holiday allowance with the HR team, query a figure on their pay slip, or raise a support request to request new IT equipment. Workflows and automated processes route the queries to the best team for resolution or provide the right information, with no human intervention required.

“The Now Platform^® has initiated a significant change in the way people interact with services and receive the support they need to carry out their role,” says Wendy. “We’ve made it easy for employees to engage with the services they need to do their job, with a seamless, user-focused experience.”

NHSBT employees across the organisation have a consistent, sophisticated service experience
The strategy has brought consistency to service delivery across the organisation. All 5,500 employees use the same portal and follow the same process—and that means they receive the same, quality employee experience.

“Our workforce is very diverse and dispersed, with employees performing very different functions,” says Wendy. “Our unified service portal ensures every employee can access the same information and help, regardless of where they are, what their role is, and what device they are using.”

Creating a sophisticated service environment was also a key objective for Wendy and her team, as she explains: “Patient and donor safety and care is always first and foremost, but that doesn’t mean we should compromise on the quality of services delivered to our employees. Our workforce is NHSBT’s biggest asset. With ServiceNow, we have made it easy for our employees to work within the organisation that employs them and empowered them to contribute.”

ServiceNow is a springboard for continuous development to accelerate service delivery across the organisation
Working with ServiceNow and technology delivery partner Engage ESM, NHSBT is continuously striving to achieve maximum value from its investment.

The organisation carries out three or four key releases every year, with everyone designed to take out more manual process, speed up the service process for employees, and enhance the experience.

A steering group owns the way forward, made up of decision makers across the organisation to form a multi-discipline team that is empowered to “create the art of the possible“.

“The steering group has started conversations and a collaborative approach to working towards a common goal,” says Wendy. “It’s been a springboard to really accelerate our strategy for unified service delivery. People are seeing the benefits and putting forward business cases as a direct result of their own experience.”

A straightforward service to run, ServiceNow empowers NHSBT to drive change within the organisation
ServiceNow is now a strategic platform provider for NHSBT, and collaboration between ServiceNow and Engage ESM has been central to the success of the approach.

NHSBT has trained up eight internal specialists who are ServiceNow certified, who work in partnership with Engage to define the features of each release and carry out small changes and mini releases on an ongoing basis, as required.

The result is a collaborative, agile team that is empowered to respond to issues and make routine changes as they are needed, such as adding another field to a request form. 

“ServiceNow and Engage ESM have not only delivered a technology platform, but the knowledge and experience to bring our vision to life and empower our team to drive change within the organisation. Our service administrators are actively involved in shaping our service strategy and that has made them much more engaged with our organisation,” says Wendy.  

“I can’t imagine how we would operate without ServiceNow; it’s now a way of life within NHSBT,” adds Wendy. “It’s a mature and complex technology platform, yet it’s a straightforward service to run in the business. We don’t have to sell it now. It’s selling itself.”

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