Digital Partner - Website Design and Development

Description

Summary of the work Perform both maintenance and development functions. They will maintain: • The existing NHS SPS website using a set of defined technologies • Other digital products or functions used by NHS SPS They will support digital development; • undertaking user testing and research to identify user needs in key strategic areas Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Friday 1 April 2022 Why the Work is Being Done Perform maintenance and development for the existing website using a set of defined technologies, incumbent supplier withdrawing from this contract 31st March 22. New provider will support development by undertaking user testing and research to identify user needs in key areas and work with SPS and its users to help solve needs through development and delivery of appropriate digital solutions. Problem to Be Solved Incumbent supplier is withdrawing from this contract 31st March 22, a new provider is being sought. All hosting has been taken back in house via Google Cloud and we will give access rights to new provider. The successful provider will become the strategic digital partner for NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service. The provider will perform both maintenance and development functions. They will maintain: • The existing NHS SPS website using a set of defined technologies • Other digital products or functions used by NHS SPS currently They will support digital development by: • undertaking user testing and research to identify user needs in key strategic areas for SPS • working with NHS SPS and its users to help solve needs through development and delivery of appropriate digital solutions Who Are the Users NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS) is an England wide service commissioned by NHS England. It specialises in the implementation of system wide Medicines Optimisation activities led by the office of the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England. NHS SPS’s users are primarily healthcare professionals working with medicines in the NHS. SPS has a dedicated digital team of 2 WTE pharmacist and 1 WTE pharmacy technician. The team is non-technical, but can act as a link point between the current and future supplier. The provider would also be expected to interact with other colleagues across SPS as appropriate. As part of user research and testing, the provider would need to interact with a broad range of healthcare professionals. Early Market Engagement SPS has invested significantly in developing its digital services over the past 5 years. Our digital presence and tools now underpin how we implement many of our objectives and meet the needs of our users. This has been demonstrated particularly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Our approach to creating, publishing, and maintaining good quality usable content led to over half-a-million 28-day active users for sustained periods during the vaccine programme roll-out. Campaign mail enabled users to keep on top of our fast moving content. And a business intelligence platform enabled SPS to review and maintain its material in a targeted manner to meet evolving need. Conversations with these companies to understand marketplace, our needs, these complimented discussions with NHS Digital to frame our specification. GoRangeFree https://gofreerange.com/ Zaltek https://zaltek.co.uk/ Zoocha https://www.zoocha.com/ MadeTech https://www.madetech.com/ DXW https://www.dxw.com/ CX Partners https://www.cxpartners.co.uk/ Existing Team SPS has a dedicated digital team of 2 WTE pharmacist and 1 WTE pharmacy technician. The team is non-technical, but can act as a link point between the current and future supplier. The provider would also be expected to interact with other colleagues across SPS as appropriate. As part of user research and testing, the provider would need to interact with a broad range of healthcare professionals. Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Recent experience (within 3 years - state year) of taking over the support, maintenance and development of a website developed by another supplier. • Recent experience (within 3 years - state year) of working with GCP Kubernetes, WordPress, ElasticSearch, and front end JavaScript technologies. • Recent experience (within 3 years - state year) of applying the principles of user centred design to the development of digital solutions in line with NHS Service Standard. • Recent experience (state year) in rapid development of prototypes created iteratively based on user discovery and testing findings • Recent experience (state year) in UX, UI and interaction design services that meet accessibility legislation and best practice guidance • Recent experience (state year) of delivering solutions based on WordPress • Recent experience (state year) in staging development, from prototyping through to production release • Recent experience (within 3 years - state year) of working with organisations to change their ways of working including introducing service design, innovation, or user-centred design methodologies • Recent experience (within 3 years - state year) of working within environments with complex hierarchal decision-making structures and where multiple stakeholders have differing levels of digital awareness Nice to Haves • Be available from contract award to commence working from March 22 • Have access to a full web development team, including: user researchers, UX designers, developers, and content designers. • For development work to the gov.uk agile delivery service standard and follows its particular application to healthcare in the NHS Digital Service Standard. • Manage maintenance, issue resolution, and minor development requests, we currently use Trello and would expect our provider to use this or a similar ticketing based system • Recent experience (within 3 years - state year) of working across stakeholders including healthcare experts, healthcare providers, digital development teams, and NHS professionals. • Recent experience (within 3 years - state year) of working in the medicines and medicines optimisation landscape. • Recent experience (within 3 years - state year) of working with interdisciplinary and cross disciplinarily project teams including clinical and policy teams. Work Location Remote working however some meetings may need to take place from our London based offices. Working Arrangments Work will be predominantly undertaken remotely. If travel permits, there may be some attendance at workshops or other infrequent meetings at NHS England offices (primarily in London). In addition, the NHS SPS team is spread across England, and there may be occasional need to travel outside of London to meet individuals. User testing may need to be undertaken in person at users’ NHS work locations across England in some instances, although the expectation would be for remote user testing in most instances. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • how the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal • approach and methodology • technical solution • estimated timeframes for the work • team structure • how they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • how the approach or solution meets user needs Cultural Fit Criteria • work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes • take responsibility for their work • share knowledge and experience with other team members • challenge the status quo • be comfortable standing up for their discipline • can work with clients with low technical expertise Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 15% Price 25% Questions from Suppliers 1. Please advise the budget range for this opportunity The budget is £200k - £250k per annum 2. Can you advise the size and location of the current team This is detailed within the specification;SPS has a dedicated digital team of 2 WTE pharmacist and 1 WTE pharmacy technician. The team is non-technical, but can act as a link point between the current and future supplier. The team are remote based.The provider would also be expected to interact with other colleagues across SPS as appropriate.As part of user research and testing, the provider would need to interact with a broad range of healthcare professionals. 3. Can you please advise the split between support and ongoing development? e.g. how many support incidents pa, and how much development time. We'd be aiming for a 60:40 split. With 60% development; 40% maintenance. Additional comments on development activities will be published in addition to this; 4. Development Criteria 1/12 Development activities The successful provider will act as the strategic development partner for NHS SPS. They will need to have, or have access to, a full web development team, including: user researchers, UX designers, developers, and content designers.For development, SPS works to the gov.uk agile delivery service standard and follows its particular application to healthcare in the NHS Digital Service Standard. We are committed to helping solve problems for our users. Thus, properly conducted user research, and its pragmatic translation, is vital to us to design and deliver online services that meet our user needs 5. Development Criteria 2/12 We’d expect our partner to help us conduct user research and apply the findings to develop, iterate and release feature improvements. Priority areasWe have three strategic priority areas for the development approach described above. Further detail on each is provided below. Our expectation is that work areas 1 and 2 form development activity during years 1-2 of the contract. Work area 3, we would anticipate starting at the end of year 2 or the beginning of year 3. 6. Development Criteria 3/121.Medicines content tools Work to dateThrough prior user research and testing, SPS has identified that medicines content tools provide a good solution to meet our users’ needs in defined areas. Our approach to-date has been to develop features and content in parallel, atomising and re-describing existing content where necessary. We have developed and released two such tools using this strategy:• Medicines monitoring: this tool enables users to easily identify patient parameters to check before and during treatment with high-risk medicines. •Medicines supply: this tool enables users to easily identify those medicines affected by supply issues, and actions to take where a medicine is unavailable. Future expectation We would expect our new developer to partner with us to continue this existing programme of work. The first project will be development of a tool that enables users to plan for and facilitate deployment of new medicines to the NHS. This tool will capture both new medicines horizon scanning and patent expiries for branded medicines. An initial discovery exercise will be necessary to inform the work. 7. Development Criteria 4/12 Prior work indicates potential needs for medicines content tools in;• Medicines stability in dosette boxes • Medicines stability outside the fridge • Medicines safety in breastfeeding and pregnancy • Aseptic medicines preparation Expectations:• Undertake discovery or other recognised testing with end-users • Develop prototypes in the areas given above• User test prototypes where necessary • Draw together common insights across content areas to enable frugal feature development • Work iteratively with the SPS team to support atomisation and re-describing of content • Work iteratively with the SPS team to point of live alpha for individual tools 8. Development Criteria 5/12 2.Site and service The website currently contains written webpages and attachments (with SPS increasingly working to the NHS Digital and gov.uk standards to create good quality online content). An objective over the term of the contract is to develop the website beyond being solely a home for content and to better represent the totality of the SPS offering. We thus wish to explore additional needs users have of the SPS website beyond published content, and to develop the feature set of the site to meet those needs. Identify opportunities 9. Development Criteria 6/12 The provider would work with us to identify opportunities for SPS to expand its website offer beyond its current publication model.They would undertake discovery phase user research to help us better understand our users’ current use of technology in their day-to-day working lives. What do our users use; when; how; and why?The provider may also undertake scenario based testing of the existing website to help us unpick current issues and identify opportunities for improvement. Particular areas where we’d like to know more include: 10. Development Criteria 7/12 o Understanding what our users do when they get stuck with a topic or issue in practice. What (if any) technologies might they then turn to? Where might an SPS technology solution fit with their existing workflow and practice? o Understanding our users’ needs for content delivered outside our traditional publication model. How do our users consume content elsewhere? And how might SPS best fit with their existing behaviours to deliver value in their professional lives? 11. Development Criteria 8/12 Work with us to deliver solutions Following user research, the provider would work with us to deliver live alpha products that expand our website offer beyond published content. Feature areas for development are likely to include improved abilities for users and the service to interact with one another through the website. Example solutions might include abilities for users to: o book a service o raise and answer questions o book onto an evento feedback o network with other users o share using social media 12. Development Criteria 9/12 3.SPS where users need us Increasingly, the needs our users have of us digitally exist outside our website. We’d like to explore the problems in this space further and to develop appropriate solutions. Identify opportunities From our existing analytics, we know that greater than 50% of our user base currently use a mobile phone to access the SPS website. We’ve also identified, anecdotally, that our users have need for SPS content and services in digital systems they use day-to-day outside of our current digital offer. 13. Development Criteria 10/12 We’d like our provider to undertake some initial discovery research to help us understand the digital needs of users of SPS outside of traditional desktop use of our website. The types of areas and questions we’d like to explore include: • Users’ needs on mobile devices For example: What are the medicine or service related tasks users undertake in their working lives that are suited to mobile devices? Where and how do they undertake them? What mobile services or applications might SPS offer that add value and align to our existing work? • Users’ needs of SPS outside our infrastructure 14. Development Criteria 11/12 For example: the tasks our users need to complete within systems they use everyday, where professional medicines advice might benefit them Work with us to deliver solutions Following user research, potential areas where we might expect to deliver solutions include: • Mobile applications Mobile applications for SPS would likely bring us closer to our users and their work at point-of-care for patients. Solutions might include mobile applications to: enable users to consume directional, structured medicines content; to raise a question to SPS when they get stuck; to sign-up to educational podcasts; or to book onto one of our events. 15. Development Criteria 12/12 Many of the immediate usage cases met through mobile applications would likely be similarly to those for medicines tools. • Content syndication Where users have needs for our material within systems they use day-to-day, we should seek to meet those. This might involve pilot work to integrate and syndicate content to 3rd party point-of-care providers (for example, EMIS, SystemOne, and EPMA systems) to meet identified usage cases.