Digital transformation continues to redefine how urgent care services operate across the NHS.
From triage and referral through to clinical documentation and patient flow management, frontline teams increasingly depend on digital systems to deliver safe, efficient and high-quality care. But as reliance on technology grows, so does the need for robust contingency measures that ensure services can continue operating safely when primary systems go offline.
Urgent care providers are seeking alternative digital contingency solutions that can maintain continuity during system downtime. In response to this need, CLEO Systems has launched the CLEO NHS 111 Contingency Module – a purpose-built platform designed to ensure urgent care services can continue working digitally when their host clinical systems are unavailable.
Other, now retired solutions, have been widely used across the NHS as a resilience measure during clinical system outages. The new CLEO NHS 111 Contingency Module builds on this, providing a flexible solution for users of any urgent care clinical patient management system. It enables services to maintain triage, referral and clinical governance processes during periods of disruption, whether outages are brief or prolonged.
Across urgent care settings, digital platforms now underpin almost every aspect of the patient journey. High-volume services rely on electronic clinical triage tools, referral systems and patient records to ensure consistent, safe decision-making. Even short periods of downtime can create significant clinical and operational challenges.
When systems fail, teams often revert to paper processes, slowing clinical workflow, increasing administrative burden and introducing risks related to documentation, auditability and patient tracking. These temporary arrangements can be especially difficult to manage during peak-demand periods and often result in fragmented records that must be reconciled once systems are restored. With NHS services continuing to accelerate digital adoption, building resilience into operational models has become essential.
The CLEO NHS 111 Contingency Module has been developed specifically to address these challenges. The standalone platform enables clinicians and call handlers to continue recording patient interactions, conducting triage and managing referrals digitally, even when their primary system is unavailable. By preserving structured digital workflows, the module reduces service disruption and helps teams maintain safe and consistent care delivery during outages.
Crucially, the solution removes the need to fall back on paper, helping protect patient safety while supporting operational continuity. Its flexibility also means it can be deployed alongside a wide variety of NHS urgent care technologies, providing a sustainable option for organisations.
The module gives operational teams clear oversight of activity during downtime, enabling them to allocate resources dynamically and respond to fluctuations in demand. All patient interactions recorded during an outage are captured within the system, ensuring accurate documentation and simplifying the recovery process once primary systems return. This reduces the administrative backlog and strengthens governance and reporting.
CLEO Systems brings deep experience in developing digital solutions that support frontline healthcare delivery. The organisation works with urgent care providers, emergency departments, outpatient pathways and community pharmacy services to improve efficiency and enhance patient outcomes.
As Emma Dew, Director of Customer Success at CLEO Systems, explains: “CLEO Systems has extensive experience in creating robust, risk-managed solutions that enable safer, innovative and reliable patient services. The CLEO NHS 111 Contingency Module allows service leads to maintain and record vital activity, allocate resources dynamically and respond proactively to surges in demand, all within one intuitive interface.”
As NHS services continue to scale digital innovation, resilience is becoming just as critical as transformation. Ensuring urgent care providers can continue operating safely and confidently during system outages is vital to protecting both patients and clinicians. Solutions such as the CLEO NHS 111 Contingency Module will play an important role in strengthening the resilience and reliability of urgent care infrastructure across the NHS.
For more information on the CLEO NHS 111 Contingency Module, click here.
