Mental health nursing, along with other professional groups, has had to adapt to new ways of delivering health services, often in response to government policy. Consequently, traditional professional boundaries and roles are being rapidly and consistently expanded, often requiring coordinated responses across strategic, educational and clinical domains to ensure service users experience high-quality mental health interventions. This paper explores and evaluates such a coordinated response in developing unplanned care services in Scotland. The evaluation, placed within a framework of realistic evaluation, highlights not only the efficacy of the provided training and education for new roles within unplanned care, but also that emotionally intelligent capabilities are required to successfully implement the level of change currently being experienced within the UK mental health services.