NHS SBS and Salesforce launch AI finance support platform

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) has partnered with Salesforce to launch an AI-powered digital help centre designed to streamline finance and procurement support across the NHS.

The platform, known as SBS One, forms part of NHS SBS’s wider investment in a new unified finance and procurement service.

Built on Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 for Public Sector platform, it combines self-service tools, automation and AI agents to support NHS staff and suppliers with finance and procurement queries.

NHS SBS, which processes around £395 billion of NHS funding each year and provides corporate services to healthcare organisations across England, said the new system is intended to modernise how users access support while reducing administrative burden on frontline teams.

John Murphy, head of customer excellence at NHS SBS, said: “People love the platform and they’re enjoying working on it.

“We’ve shown something unexpected: that a contact centre can be a harmonised service that suits everyone whilst driving AI transformation across an entire organisation. Innovation can come from anywhere.

“With most cases now resolved within 24 hours, we are vastly exceeding our service level agreements. It’s a return on investment that is absolutely huge.”

At the centre of the platform is a digital help centre that allows users to raise, track and resolve invoice queries in real time.

A conversational AI assistant, named “Agent Murphy” after John Murphy, uses natural language processing to respond instantly to routine enquiries and route more complex issues to specialist teams with relevant case information attached.

According to NHS SBS, 84% of customer queries are now initiated through the digital platform, reducing reliance on telephone support. Average handling times have fallen by 20%, while most cases are now resolved within 24 hours.

The organisation also said the average time taken to raise a query has dropped from 12 minutes to three minutes because of simplified workflows and built-in security checks.

NHS SBS added that only 6% of invoices processed through its systems currently generate a query, with the new platform helping suppliers gain faster clarity while supporting NHS finance teams to keep processes moving efficiently.

The organisation plans to expand the use of AI further across service areas including supplier queries, email handling and case management. It expects AI agents could eventually manage up to half of overall service demand.

Zahra Bahrololoumi, chief executive at Salesforce UKI, said: “Our work with NHS SBS represents a pivotal shift in how UK critical national infrastructure achieves productivity, moving from experimentation to real, measurable impact at scale.

“By bringing together data, automation, and AI agents on a unified platform, NHS SBS is not just optimising workflows—they are unlocking fiscal capacity, strengthening supply chain resilience, and proving that trusted AI can deliver profound economic value back to frontline public services.”

Earlier this month, NHS SBS launched a £900m framework agreement designed to support the procurement of AI across the NHS and wider public sector.