Rotherham NHS Trust cuts IT helpdesk calls 28% with AI agent

TL;DR:

• Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust has cut IT helpdesk call volumes by 28% after deploying an autonomous AI agent through Netcall’s Liberty Converse platform.
• 41% of IT queries are now resolved through self-service and AI agents, freeing the in-house service desk for complex tickets.
• The trust is now planning a second phase focused on out-of-hours support to reduce avoidable callouts.

The Trust used a combination of generative and agentic AI to triage demand before it reaches a human agent — the system interprets intent, retrieves the relevant knowledge-base content, and walks users through troubleshooting steps without team intervention. Christine Hazlehurst, head of IT service management and support services, framed it as a response to “rising demand for IT support without the ability to increase headcount” — a familiar constraint across NHS trusts.

Why the numbers matter

The 28% call-volume reduction and 41% self-service rate are the kinds of figures NHS trusts can defend in a finance committee. Both are headline metrics that translate cleanly to FTE-equivalent capacity. The trust also runs continuous observe-learn-improve cycles on live interactions — James Rawlinson, director of health informatics, said this allows ongoing refinement of the virtual assistant against real user behaviour rather than synthetic test scripts.

UK angle: pairs with the GOV.UK Chat narrative

Rotherham sits in the same week of UK public-sector AI deployment news as GOV.UK Chat’s national launch. The NHS-trust deployment is smaller in scope but stronger on measured outcomes: 28% call reduction, 41% self-service, and a published phase-two plan. For UK SMEs eyeing similar IT-helpdesk deployments, the practical lesson is that the value sits in the triage layer (intent recognition + knowledge retrieval), not in chatbot conversation flair.

Looking forward

Phase two targets out-of-hours support, a period where unanticipated callouts are most expensive for NHS estates. The trust has not disclosed the size of that opportunity, but if a comparable 28% reduction holds out-of-hours, the deployment shifts from operational efficiency to genuine staffing-model implications. Other UK NHS trusts running Netcall or comparable agent platforms should ask Rotherham’s team for the configuration data behind the published numbers — the published case study is light on technical detail and that is the gap procurement teams will need to close.