BJSS awarded £27.8m Scotland Digital Front Door contract

NHS Education for Scotland has awarded technology consultancy BJSS a £27.8 million contract to help deliver the Digital Front Door app for health and social care services.

The contract award notice, published on 22 May 2025, states that BJSS will work alongside NHS Education for Scotland in delivering the “key priority deliverables” for December 2025.

“The delivery partner’s resources will work collaboratively as in integrated part of the technology service within NHS Education for Scotland using established programme management and technology delivery methodologies,” the notice reads.

This will include participation in standard project and programme management and delivery structures, such as daily stand-up meetings, planning meetings, and programme boards.

Activities such as “concise highlight reporting, developing architectural documentation, service blueprints, organising and participating in engagement, [and] design and delivery meetings with stakeholders as appropriate” will also be required by BJSS.

The total value of the contract is £27,852,000 and was awarded on 8 May 2025 after seven tenders were received.

A spokesperson for NHS Education for Scotland told Digital Health News: “NHS Education for Scotland recently awarded BJSS a contract to serve as the delivery partner for a new health and social care app, called the Digital Front Door.

“This will help people in Scotland interact more effectively with health and social care services.  This contract will be for a total of three years.

“We are currently working with BJSS on a full business case, which will specify official dates.”

It follows the Scottish government’s plans announced in January 2025 to launch the Digital Front Door platform by the end of 2025.

The Scottish government has been working on the app, which will include access to both health and social care data and service, since 2022.

It is intended to allow people to access, self-manage, and contribute to their health and care information online, providing digital notifications, access to personal health information and options for patients to interact with health and social care services.

The Scottish government told Digital Health News in October 2024 that it was not adopting the NHS App and remained committed to developing the Digital Front Door platform.

A spokesperson for the Scottish government said at the time: “The NHS App was developed to support NHS trusts in England. This is not something we can adopt in Scotland as it is configured specifically to the IT infrastructure in England.

“Therefore, the Digital Front Door programme was created to develop and deliver similar functionality into a range of different services across health and care in Scotland.

“This goes beyond an NHS app as it will also cover social care.”

In January 2025, BJSS was awarded a £37.5 million contract by NHS England to deliver “large-scale public facing digital services to support development for NHS.UK and the wider portfolio which includes the NHS App and Login”.

IBM continues to be NHS England’s delivery partner for the NHS App, under contract until July 2026.