About
Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a mental health and community trust based in the Black Country, just outside Birmingham. Serving one of the most deprived regions in the UK, the trust supports thousands of staff and service users, many of whom have low levels of digital confidence.
The Challenge
At the start of its digital journey, the trust recorded a low score in the national Digital Maturity Assessment. Limited investment over a number of years had left staff relying on a service desk system that could not provide meaningful reporting or manage tickets effectively.
This lack of visibility made it difficult for IT teams to prioritise work and provide timely support. HR and People Services were also feeling the strain, managing all queries through a shared inbox with no way to track progress or ensure accountability. For staff across the trust, even straightforward requests became time-consuming, with uncertainty over where to go and whether they would get a response.
These challenges weren’t just administrative frustrations, they risked slowing down the wider organisation at a time when staff needed reliable, efficient support. The trust needed a scalable platform that could bring multiple services together into a single point of access, ensuring transparency and accountability without additional cost.
"Many of our staff have low levels of digital confidence, and the tools we had simply weren’t good enough. We were working with a service desk system that was hard to manage and gave us almost no visibility, which made it hard to provide the support our workforce needed.”
- Catherine Smith, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
The Solution
Halo was first implemented at Black Country Healthcare in 2021, beginning with the IT service desk before quickly expanding across digital services, HR, and People Services. Staff now have a single portal to raise requests, with tailored forms capturing the right information first time and knowledge base articles suggested before tickets are logged. This has replaced shared inboxes and cut out wasted time spent chasing missing details.
The trust also developed “Mary”, a Halo-powered chatbot created entirely out-of-the-box in just a few days. Mary now handles routine IT and HR queries, while automations such as the “Tell Us Once” form save time by automatically notifying multiple departments when an employee leaves.
More recently, Halo supported a major cross-team project. The Spine Enablement initiative, which gave staff access to electronic patient records via virtual smart cards, was added later and required collaboration across IT and clinical teams. By configuring Halo to provide shared visibility across departments, tickets could move seamlessly through each stage of the process. The setup was completed in days, and crucially, the new service was delivered at no additional cost.
With all features available out-of-the-box and no reliance on costly add-ons, the trust has been able to plan with confidence, knowing that new services can be added and scaled without unexpected costs.
"The big impact of Halo is that it shows the team we’re investing in them, that we value them enough to give them the right tools, rather than leaving them to work with substandard systems.”
- Catherine Smith, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
The Results
Since adopting Halo, Black Country Healthcare has achieved:
- Excellence in Digital Accreditation, with chatbot Mary recognised nationally as best practice.
- 100+ agents using Halo, spanning IT, digital services, HR, and People Services.
- Single point of access for staff, replacing intranet searches and shared inboxes.
- Major projects delivered on time, including the Spine Enablement rollout.
- All functionality included, with no costly add-ons or hidden extras.
- Improved staff morale, with teams feeling valued through investment in modern tools.
"Halo has been a real game changer for us. It feels like the foundation of how we work now. Our users are confident with it, and so much of what we do is built on the platform. We’re in a much stronger position, and we couldn’t have achieved that without Halo.”
- Claire Anderson, Customer Relationship Manager, Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Looking ahead, the trust plans to extend Halo across all customer-facing services, creating a truly unified single point of access for staff across the organisation.