NHSE and Softcat: Building a Scalable FinOps Model for National Healthcare
Project at a Glance
NHS England, newly formed from several merged organisations, sought to gain consistent visibility, governance and commercial alignment across its significantly expanded cloud estate. Softcat partnered closely with NHS England’s Cloud Centre of Excellence, embedding FinOps expertise, unifying Azure and AWS commercial agreements, and introducing structured workflows and advanced cost‑management tools. The result was a scalable operating model with clear control of cloud spend, strengthened processes, and substantial financial and operational improvements.
Challenge
The creation of the new NHS England introduced an opportunity to bring together multiple inherited cloud environments that each operated differently. The organisation aimed to improve visibility of spend and usage, create consistent tagging and reporting practices, and establish a scalable FinOps model to support a much larger estate. It also sought to consolidate fragmented commercial agreements and reduce dependency on individual experts by adopting more sustainable processes and tooling.
Critical Success Factors:
1
Cloud Visibility
Achieving complete transparency of spend and usage across AWS and Azure.
2
Scalable FinOps
Establishing a scalable FinOps model that removed single points of failure.
3
Commercial Simplification
Consolidating legacy cloud agreements into unified, strategic commercial frameworks
Solution
Softcat strengthened its long‑standing relationship with NHS England by integrating deeply with the Cloud Centre of Excellence and embedding FinOps analysts within day‑to‑day operations.Using CloudHealth, custom dashboards and a ServiceNow service wrap, Softcat provided enhanced visibility, structured workflows and proactive support.
The team delivered major commercial consolidation across Azure and AWS, unified reporting, and safe, data‑driven adoption of Savings Plans and Reserved Instances, supported by regular workshops and ongoing optimisation
- Embedded FinOps analysts working as an extension of NHS England’s CCoE.
- Consolidated Azure and AWS commercial agreements for clearer governance and value.
- Powerful visibility and forecasting enabled through CloudHealth and custom dashboards.
Results
NHS England achieved significant and immediate financial savings, supported by clearer forecasting, improved governance and unified commercial frameworks. Operationally, teams gained back valuable time through reduced manual effort and consistent engagement rhythms, while cost ownership and FinOps culture strengthened across the organisation.
The partnership also deepened trust and collaboration, enabling responsive problem‑solving and continuous improvement across the cloud environment.
- Significant commercial cost savings delivered within the first months of the new contract.
- Stronger, scalable FinOps culture with clear team-level cost ownership.
- Unified AWS and Azure contracts offering clarity, stability and value for taxpayers.
Savings Plans and Reserved Instances are currently saving us huge amounts every month… around a 25% saving on what we would otherwise be paying.
Chris Squibb
FinOps Lead, NHS England