[EBO] more than rose to the challenge. It felt like a true development partnership with staff from both EBO and BCU forming a cohesive team.
Introducing Project S.P.A.N.:
The Single Point of Access and Navigation Solution
A safeguarded solution that guides patients to the right care 24/7 while reducing avoidable demand on NHS teams.
Trusted by leading healthcare organisations
Project S.P.A.N is eligible for Innovation Funding as part of the NHS Frontline Productivity Programme. This programme aims to deliver a 2% year-on-year productivity gain over three years, partly through the adoption of technology. The funding deadline is 15 April 2026.
Navigating Care Made Simple.
Project S.P.A.N. (Single Point of Access and Navigation) creates a safeguarded digital front door for neighbourhood and community services, giving patients and carers a clearer route to the right service first time while reducing avoidable calls, emails, redirection and manual signposting.
Delivered initially through a mobile-friendly page on your website or via the NHS App, it provides a practical route to better access, measurable productivity gain and a repeatable model that can scale from one organisation to ICB-wide deployment.
Avoidable calls: Receptionists and call handlers absorb low-complexity queries that consume capacity.
Costly misdirection: Patients default to urgent care routes simply because the right route is unclear.
Access limited to working hours: Questions go unanswered outside standard working hours, driving anxiety and delayed access.
The problem
As Neighbourhood Health becomes more integrated, it can also become harder to navigate. Patients who want to do the right thing, can still end up in the wrong place.
But when the local offer becomes broader, the navigation challenge becomes harder. People may not know where to go, whether they are eligible, who to contact, or what their next step should be. And when that happens, they often contact multiple services, default to the most visible route, or simply disengage. That’s where access becomes a central operational issue.e
The Solution
EBO’s Single Point of Access and Navigation Solution offers patients, carers and staff a clearer route into an increasingly integrated primary, community and local services.
The project establishes a trusted digital front door through which patients can ask questions, receive locally grounded answers, and be guided to the most appropriate service, pathway, or next step in their healthcare journey.
Every response is grounded in approved local content, constrained by explicit guardrails, and supported by human handover where needed.
Download EBO’s Single Point of Access & Navigation fact sheet
The Single Point of Access and Navigation Solution brings together approved local guidance, service information, referral criteria, appointment instructions, and NHS content to generate a single patient friendly answer in plain language.
How it Works
1. Patient access the digital front door
The patient can simply ask a question to the Virtual Assistant available on the trust’s website or the NHS app.
2. Turning fragmented guidance into one clear patient answer
Route logic draws on approved Trust content, local pathways, and NHS guidance (never generic model memory). The solution brings together approved local guidance, service catalogue, referral criteria, appointment instructions, and NHS content to generate a single patient friendly answer in plain language. This is delivered conversationally through secure, guardrailed GenAI.
3. The Patient is guided to the right route and next steps
Clear next steps, contact details, service access criteria, and location information is provided.
4. Staff notified when needed
Out-of-scope or higher-risk interactions trigger structured handover to the relevant operational team with full context.
Guardrailed by Design
The scope behind the solution is not to replace clinical judgement or provide autonomous clinical decision making. It is intended to support access, navigation and signposting within a clearly defined scope, operating within a controlled governance framework, with clear rules on what it can do, what content it may use, and when it must deflect, signpost or hand over to a human route.
Responses are guardrailed only in NHS trust-approved and other authorised content, with prompt and dialogue controls used to define service boundaries. Requests that fall outside scope, raise safeguarding concerns, indicate vulnerability, or require staff intervention will be chanelled through agreed handover pathways rather than handled autonomously.
Powered by Generative AI
Healthcare environments are inherently document-rich, with critical information often fragmented across Trust websites, service directories and other local resources. Locating this information can be challenging.
EBO’s Generative AI addresses this by transforming existing content into clear, accessible, and human-centric responses.This is particularly impactful for local signposting.
Importantly, EBO’s AI does not create new service logic; it enhances access to established knowledge, making it simpler for users to understand and act upon.
3x Return on Investment
The S.P.A.N project is a 12 month project from mobilisation and assurance to live optimisation, evaluation, ROI case and replication blueprint.
It targets 3x operational ROl through lower manual demand, better first-time routing, reduced inappropriate referrals, structured handover and fewer wrong place contacts. The live service also creates business intelligence on demand patterns, confusion points, unmet need and future pathway redesign.
The Benefits
For Patients
Clearer Patient Pathways
-
24/7 access to guidance — no waiting for office hours
-
Faster navigation to the right service, first time
-
Reduced anxiety and avoidable delays
-
Better support for those with language barriers or low health literacy
-
Clear access for those unfamiliar with local services
For Clinical and Admin Staff
Increased Capacity and time
-
Significant reduction in routine navigation queries
-
Fewer avoidable appointments freeing up clinical time
-
Staff freed to focus on work requiring professional expertise
-
✓ Reduced day-to-day workload pressures, supporting retention
-
Better conditions for managing broader and more complex caseloads
What You'll Get
24/7 Access & Guidance
Local Configuration
- Insight reporting on demand, themes and patient behaviour.
Clinical Safety
Proof in the User Journey
Turning AI insights into real-world outcomes for patients and healthcare providers. EBO’s solution results so far:
Fewer no-shows (DNA rate)
0
%
Staff time costs saved
£
M
Annual saving per 10,000 patients validated quarterly
£
k
Here's the digital front door your patients always wanted.
- Improve Routing
- Increase Staff Capacity
- Gain 3x ROI
Trusted by leading healthcare organisations
Here are a few words from our clients on their experience with our solution.
Danielle Edwards
Head of Digital Transformation
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board
If a solution like EBO is implemented across the NHS, it can revolutionise access to maternity care for the majority of service users. The point is to release capacity in Health systems by using innovation and technology that supports that.
Charlotte Clayton
Clinical Academic Doctoral Midwife
RM Princess Anne Hospital, University Hospital Southampton
Our booking officers absolutely love our Virtual Assistant Alex, since it does the legwork and they can focus on the patient. Over the last six months, Alex has helped save 24 hours of staff time every week. Our callers come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, so we worked with our communication to make sure Alex understands all our patients and the different ways they communicate.
Kim Hale
Digital Change Lead
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust
The experience of working with EBO on our Virtual Assistant has been very positive. EBO and Servelec listened to our feedback and helped design AI solutions that benefit our patients by providing an alternative way they interact with the trust.
James Mariott
Digital Change Manager
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust
I think where we really found the stress is on the admin. A lot of our service users are calling us, which means that our lines are continuously busy and admins miss some of the calls, as they are on the phone with another service user at the time. It means that people are trying to get in contact till the late evening when the services are closed. It really opened up our eyes to see that there are other ways our clients can communicate with us and there are other ways that we can communicate with the clients. It actually works for them.
Shona Richards
Digital Transformation Project Manager
East London NHS Foundation Trust
EBO is a trusted partner of Microsoft, because a lot of what we see with thousands of customers that we work around the world is very much aligned with EBO’s mission and vision. They empower caregivers; they empower administrative staff, and they empower patients to have better access to information. 84% of Healthcare Executives believe that AI will revolutionise the way we obtain information.
Ruthy Kaidar
Director, Healthcare Industry Sector
Microsoft
We have a growing backlog and we have patients whose conditions are just getting worse as their appointments are delayed. We have people in the community who cannot even get their first appointment, they cannot get diagnosed and they cannot receive early treatment. Covid has accelerated our adoption of virtual appointments and remote patient monitoring, so there is some efficiency gained there.
Jenny Chong
Associate Non-executive Director
Medway NHS Foundation Trust
It is indeed a pleasure to work hand-in-hand with EBO in developing our AI profile and competence. Apart from providing excellent technical expertise, EBO has consistently supported, trained, and maintained a close relationship with all of our team whilst overseeing the development, deployment, and successful marketing of our AI platform. Such support is unique and provides us with the confidence and motivation to further develop this exciting Artificial Intelligence revolution together with EBO, and be able to provide a holistic and efficient experience to our clients.
Jean Claude Muscat
CEO
Saint James Hospital
“Working with EBO is like ‘a breath of fresh air’. They have a deep-seated ‘can-do’ ethos to delivering successful solutions and our collaboration functions as a true partnership. The EBO Virtual Assistant is a new technology for us with great potential as it integrates directly with our Electronic Patient Record. We initiated a pilot with EBO on e-Consent and are already lined up for rolling out pre-assessment and appointment modules.¨
Andy l’Anson
IT Programme Manager
Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust
