Provision of Personal Demographics Service (PDS) compliant, NHS spine enabled electronic patient record software that enables the secure* electronic storage and interrogation of consistent patient data including but not limited to text, image, audio and video data in both structured (for example using Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) standards) and unstructured forms supporting common coding including SNOMED CT, ICD10, ICD11 and dm+d and locally defined temporary codes. The software must function on the NHS network and support access on site (for example within a hospital), remotely (for example by a patient or other health professional on a different site) and when mobile (for example on a moving ambulance), must provide real time feeds to Local Health Care Records, support Open APIs for third party apps and must align with the principles set out in “The future of healthcare: our vision for digital, data and technology in health and care” and the “NHS digital, data and technology standards framework”.

Services in this Lot are primarily focused on Acute, Community and (where the additional capabilities are met) Mental Health Hospital Trusts, but is also available to other care settings. The solutions include the following functionality:

Records assessments and plans – Provision of a patient record that stores notes, observations, assessments and care plans that are captured and made available digitally at the point of need to care providers, patients and authorised patient representatives including but not limited to:

• Creation, registration (including registration of children), amendment, display, archive, transfer (for example from one, archived, record to a new record following a final adoption order), retrieval, closure, merger, unmerger, linking and unlinking of a longitudinal patient record that presents all relevant information (including but not limited to Mental Health Act information) to authorised staff in an appropriate, locally configurable, format and notifies staff / external systems of key changes (e.g. births and deaths) where appropriate. This includes the capability to deidentify, pseudonymize and reidentify records and record entries as required. The solutions also allow for bulk / group updates to records.
• Storage, within the record, of all data relevant to that patient including but not limited to clinical and non-clinical notes, assessments and observations (including but not limited to legacy notes, physical and mental health observations, vital signs and risk scores (including risk of self-harm and harm to others), statutory assessments as required by the care setting (e.g. assessment of educational needs) assessments using the CAF and assessments of a child’s developing functions and the 6-8 week newborn check), Perinatal Mental Health care and checks, safeguarding, referral history (including self-referrals), communications and letters, care plans (which are presented as a coherent document that can be exported for presentation in a format that is accessible for patients), demographic and cultural data, diagnostic results (including images), remote device generated data, procedures, substance use, social and family data and demographics, birth related data, relevant information about offences, employment information, allergies and sensitivities, medications history and medication reviews, treatment (including treatment given under the Mental Health Act), breastfeeding status, checks (for example 6-8 week newborn check), intolerance and adverse reactions, verified patient and family preferences, flagging of looked after children, recording of key individuals related to the patient record (e.g. roles required under the Mental Health Act or assigned senior clinicians / Caldecott guardians for child records) and patient instructions (such as advance directives, consents and authorizations)
• Full Integration within the record of real time information from external systems (including but not limited to primary, secondary, urgent, ambulatory and social care systems, patient held records, Specialist Commissioned Services and external monitoring devices (e.g. anaesthetics and infusion devices)), subject to appropriate authentication, in a format that enables interrogation. The data should be appropriately labelled to identify the source and validity of the data.
• Functionality to create, amend, display, archive, mark as confidential, merge, unmerge, link, unlink and delete care and treatment plans which can be shared electronically across care settings, with other providers and with the patient / the patient’s representative. Plans should support the use of Patient Activation Measures (PAMs) to monitor and track Patient Activation and to ensure that Patient Activation levels are integrated into decision support tools.
• Provision of locally configurable, context driven, templates and tools to support capture and presentation of data including for consultations, care plans, assessments, note taking, guidelines, policies and protocols and clinical pathways
• Capability for patients and service users to view, download and in a controlled way update information from their digital care record including communication of information that enables patients to manage their condition(s) more effectively
• Provision of access, with user and patient context, to summary care records (national, regional and local) for authorised users and integration with the National Record Locator Service where required when it becomes available
• Data capture should be supported by medical spelling checks, locally configurable shortcuts and locally defined rules driven coding
• Configurable access control (national, regional and local) of the record that enables different stakeholders to access and interact with the record (including any care plans or similar documents recorded within the record) in different ways. This should include presentation of different reports and views, which can be tailored locally, for different roles based on speciality, treatment functions, service, team, organisational context, relationship to patient etc. It should also support single sign on using Smartcards (or equivalent technology), persistent sessions of system access, a common user friendly user interface and password protection configured to local policies.
• Data export in formats appropriate for integration into other systems, registers and data sets for example electronic transmission of SUS data, data provision for the National Child Obesity Database, birth registration and registration on the Register of Disabled Children
• Data export in an accessible format (taking into account individual preferences) for use by third parties (including patients) without access to the system – for example automated extracts of data for Subject User Access Requests (including redaction of entries where required). This includes production of hard copy documents with appropriate page numbering and watermarks to ensure completeness and labelled “NHS Confidential Personal Data about a patient” where appropriate.
• Management and audit of the patient record and entries within that record (for example care plans, treatment / medication decisions etc.) including maintaining change and audit logs that enable forensic readiness and rollback as required, monitoring of access, completeness and synchronization, decisions taken (in particular where decisions over-ride decision support alerts), archive and restoration of the record and a record of where information has been released without patient consent
• Ability to record, trend and share outcomes from Physical Health Checks for those patients with Serious Mental Illness (SMI)

Solution are designed to enable interrogation and analysis (both of a single record and across multiple records), be integrated with decision support functions and capable of receiving data / intelligence (including flags and alerts) from external systems for re presentation within the core record.

Transfers of care – Capability to support and record within the patient record digital handovers of care within and between care settings, using nationally mandated standards where available and whether on site or remotely (for example while en route to a receiving location) including incoming and outbound referrals, electronic internal handovers and production of discharge notes and outpatient letters using structured messages and headings (including PRSB standards) including but not limited to:

• Creation, dispatch, receipt (from another care setting), processing, view, amendment and deletion of electronic referrals (to clinical and non-clinical settings in line with patient consents) and automated recommendation of referral routes. Referrals should be directly integrated into clinical workflows, alert the affected care provider and be communicated with the patient as appropriate.
• Digital presentation and transmission of data in the record to support handover of care (whether temporarily or permanently) while maintaining the clinical context and information about the patient/service user, including sharing handover information within and between organisations, recording handover information in structured formats.
• Discharge summaries and outpatient letters (including birth notification letters) created in a consistent structured digital format (e.g. PRSB guidelines for content headings), prepopulated from the patient record, and transmitted electronically.
• Identification of patients that should be transferred to a different care setting and automated recommendation of referral routes. This capability should also enable the identification and analysis of barriers to the transfer of care.
• Provision of access to directories of services for clinical and non-clinical interventions to enable appropriate transfers including local and national directories (e.g. e-RSS or 111)

Although the majority of referrals are managed digitally the solutions are also able to manage manual referrals where sender / receiver organisations do not have the required functionality.

Diagnostics management – Capability to digitally request consultations and diagnostic tests (including but not limited to laboratory, radiology and cardiology tests) with appropriate decision support to identify duplicate or conflicting requests and flag risk and to integrate results / images into the patient record:

• Provide capability to create, modify, cancel, track (including receipt, authorisation and scheduling) and report on ordering using role based templates (applying specialty, treatment function, service and team based information from user role profile) which can be configured and managed locally and prepopulated from the patient record.
• Support for integration of orders directly into digital workflows to enable automated booking, triaging and scheduling
• Provide information regarding compliance with local policies, order item catalogues and automated alerts based on the patient’s history (e.g. diagnoses), consents, known interactions and duplicate, conflicting or inconsistent test requests. Where alerts are overridden this should be recorded for audit purposes.
• Integration of current and historic results and images (including 3D images) into the patient record in a structured format that enables presentation, annotation, filtering, comparison and interrogation for clinical decision support. This integration should include automated verification (for example using barcode technology) that order results are connected to the right record.
• Capability to integrate with external systems (including pathology systems) as required
• Automated alerting of all results that require acknowledgement and action

Medicines management and optimisation – Support for all medicines management and optimisation processes and practice across organisations providing appropriate levels of user support and integration to negate rekeying of information across internal and external interfaces. Paper free prescription ordering, management, processing, administration (including the capture and maintenance of data into the patient record) and analysis must be provided and decisions and information regarding the administration of medicines. Services include but are not limited to:

• Prescribing and where appropriate administration (scheduling and recording) across all prescription types including inpatient, discharge, outpatients (including homecare), emergency department and day case. Support for community management patients must also be present. Electronic prescribing should also support notification of the patient’s pharmacy of choice, should be integrated with GP prescribing solutions and support repeat prescriptions.
• Support the prescription of all medicines types with associated requirements to provide a complete/safe prescription order (including for example variable/stepped dosing, linked prescribing/administration, variable route etc) – including licensed and unlicensed medicines, controlled medicines, solid oral dose forms, oral liquids, medical gases, injectables, complex infusions, multi-ingredient items, chemotherapy, high risk medicines including insulin, anti-coagulants (with reference to appropriate results to support prescribing and administration), antipsychotics, antimicrobials, immunisations etc
• Support prescribing/administration in all clinical specialties including paediatrics, neonatology, oncology, critical care, anaesthetics, emergency departments etc
• Patient group directions and non-medical prescribing must be supported
• Closed loop medicines administration must be supported providing functionality that supports the cross checking of the correct patient, medicine and prescription using digital technologies – specifically to confirm the patient identity against the medicine/dose due and the actual medicine that is selected for administration and appropriate decision support should be generated if there is a mismatch, whilst the administration should be recorded as given should the checks all match correctly.
• Views for complete information on medicines to be visualised with no truncation or wrapping of core information. Views must be available to support prescribing and administration processes providing complete information for users, mapped to the BNF
• Support through the use of local formularies (where necessary separated by age or specialty), order sets and sentences. Options to support guided prescribing must also be present, including through automated alerting based on the patient’s history. Support for risk assessment tools that require links to prescribing must be facilitated, for example VTE assessment.
• Support for antimicrobial stewardship/management with mandated indication, course length and review dates being supported as a minimum. A full suite of reports must be available to support monitoring. Links to microbiology must be supported.
• Supply – closed loop supply must be facilitated as follows: the writing of a prescription/order and/or the administration of the medicine triggers the management of the related stock such that re-order requests can be initiated and processed without the need to rekey via appropriate digitally supported medicines stock control/dispensing/supply processes. Interfacing to local stock control systems and automation systems must be available even where systems may have integrated stock control functionality. Original pack dispensing processes must be supported.
• Availability of pharmacy functions to enable supply and related management and prescription verification.
• Support to monitor patients and service users on high risk medicines using information stored in the patient record.
• Locally configured decision support tools for medicines management that provide both active and passive support, dose calculation and rounding, synchronous and asynchronous monitoring, linked to other parts of the patient record including for example pathology results, weight and surface area. Access to third party provision and local derivation of guidance and rules must also be possible.

Decision support – Provision of automated detection and escalation, promotion of best practice clinical guidance, compliance alerts / prompts and patient safety measures in the context of the patient record including:

• Locally configurable decision support at the point and time of care that provides active and passive guidance, notification and alerts about patient preferences, patient specific risks and safety (including but not limited to potential diagnostic / administration errors), compliance, potential conflicts (for example prescribing conflicts or duplicate patient records) and anomalies, deadlines (for example Mental Health Act deadlines or scheduled screenings) and other relevant information (for example flagging readmissions or patients subject to care under the Mental Health Act) and presentation of relevant, evidence based, good practice guidance, standards,  appropriate dose recommendations and treatment options as part of digital clinical workflows and care pathways
• Automatic detection of escalating risk (or deteriorating clinical observations) for patients (e.g. rising risk of sepsis, NEWS2) pushed out to clinicians to enable preventive intervention – these could be based on nationally mandated early warning scores or other best practice, configured to local thresholds
• Tools to support patient safety including identification (using locally defined rules) of patients that might be considered high-risk and requiring clinical pharmacy and provision of alerts on drug interactions, allergy, intolerance, duplication of therapeutic class of drug and out of range doses, taking into account patient consents, characteristics and local guidelines and protocols.
• Management of decision support prompts and maintenance of an audit log of the decisions taken
• Tools which support the triage and pathway allocation of patients based on best practice and evidence based guidance
• Automatic detection and alerting of patients that should be transferred to a different care setting that is integrated into a digitally supported transfer of care/discharge process
• Automated notification of actions, next actions and overdue actions in care plans, pathways or protocols (for example actions triggered by statutory documentation for the use of compulsory powers) and notifications to remind patients about missing information in the Patient Record and overdue care actions
• Alerts, notifications and reminders regarding health (including mental health alerts) and preventative care and health promotion services that enable a patient to manage their condition more effectively integrated into digital workflows
• Decision support and predictive modelling to enable the efficient utilisation of resources
• Identification of patients for inclusion in specific programmes (for example prevention or screening) or research studies

Capability to send alerts of relevant operational information about patients to all relevant providers of health and care, even where external to the care setting.

Remote and assistive care – Enable the use and integration into the electronic patient record, subject to appropriate consents and authentication, of virtual consultations, remote monitoring of patients and applications that enable the self-management of long term conditions including:

• Provision of functionality for remote / virtual consultations and advice and for virtual engagement between care providers using tools such as online meetings, videoconferencing, Skype for business, email or instant messaging
• Integration of data collated from remote / virtual consultations and remote device monitoring directly into the patient record
• Capability to provide data to and receive data from applications and devices that enable patients to manage their own condition at home

Asset and resource optimisation and administration – Provision of services that support the management, optimisation and administration of assets and resources including but not limited to appointment bookings, clinic and theatre list management, activity recording and clinical coding, patient identity management, patient flow, staff rostering, bed management and asset tracking (of devices and equipment) including:

• Local scheduling of available appointment times and search, view, creation, amendment and cancellation of appointments and assessments (including preoperative assessments) from within (e.g. when booking scans) or outside the organisation (e.g. patient or GP initiated bookings).
• Book, cancel, amend, view, search, record and in real time track the location and utilisation of non-staff resources and waiting room, clinical, diagnostic and theatre facilities linked to the patient record and reflecting locally set availability.
• Record usage and cost of consumables and support automatic ordering by creation of locally configured threshold alerts across care settings (including vehicles such as ambulances) and generation of template orders.
• Billing and invoicing including support for national and local tariffs, automatic calculation of payments due which are sent directly to a financial management system, monitoring of committed spend against budget, notional costing of internally provided services, monitoring of services actually delivered compared to planned services and costing of care and treatment plans
• Track patients digitally in real time, linked to specific bed utilisation and projected discharge dates/times where appropriate, and present data on availability to improve patient flow and identify potential delays to safely transferring a patient to another care setting.
• Development, maintenance and digital tracking of key clinical assets and resources, including assets assigned to patients.
• Workforce management including the creation and maintenance of a list of staff to support the rostering of staff to meet demand, use of location tracking to enable worklist management, journey management and expenses claims and digital assignment, notification and monitoring of actions to care professionals, taking into account case load and case mix. This should integrate with external calendars including MS Outlook / Office 365.
• Automatic upload of relevant data from monitoring devices into patient and service user records.
• A list of available resources and assets from other local care settings should be maintained to enable gaps to be addressed as required.
• Production of patient wristbands and allergy alert bands.

Business and clinical intelligence – Provision of standardised and locally configurable views and reports at a patient and population level that enable effective management of a health system. In addition, systems capture data in a way that can be interrogated (i.e. it is structured appropriately and where possible text is not stored as images or attachments) and is all accessible, using self-service tools built into the solution. The business and clinical intelligence capabilities should enable cohort identification and management, real-time operational performance monitoring and trend analysis of clinical data to improve quality of care and service delivery including:

• Production of standardised reports (for example notification of diseases to Public Health England), reports for national data collections / nationally mandated / statutory returns which are automatically populated and can be submitted electronically.
• Locally configurable template / self-service reports for managers and clinicians available in real time that enable them to manage their services / quality / caseload / patients such as summary reports about performance management, care plans, patient records, referral management, waiting time etc.
• Locally configurable template / self-service reports for managers and clinicians to enable longer term planning and management of patients including but not limited to building capacity and demand forecasting models, audit and revalidation, service improvement and management of health in at risk populations
• Data is available in a format that enables interrogation, is accessible within the system via embedded tools or direct access for authorised users and, subject to appropriate approvals, is made available to, and incorporates data from, other local providers (for example to support the identification of patient cohorts for population health initiatives (anonymised as / where required))
• Data quality information and support is integrated into the tool, for example through the provision of structured data recording and data validation on input, which is actively monitored and fed back to teams
• The system must include the capability to identify, define and manage population cohorts over time whether for research purposes or to enable ongoing management of specific segments of the patient population and Identification of research study participation or eligibility at both individual and cohort level.

Support for mental health services – Additional capability to support the management of specialist functions including but not limited to eating disorder services, forensic services, psychological services, psychiatric services, early intervention services, child and adolescent mental health services and learning disabilities including recording, viewing and amending information relevant to the provision of mental health services to a patient including but not limited to:

• The legal status of the patient (i.e. Formal (i.e. compulsory treatment) or Informal (i.e. voluntary treatment)), capturing the initial request for a Formal assessment (including those generated within the Trust and Applications / Orders raised externally e.g. from AMPH or MoJ) and alerting relevant personnel (including Patient Advice and Liaison Services and non-statutory liaison and advocacy services), supporting and tracking the activities and progress associated with an assessment, recording the assessment and supporting the scheduling and alerting of care provider’s attendance at relevant stages (including at tribunal and court hearings where required)
• Provision of locally configured crisis, relapse and contingency plans
• Recording and reviewing the fulfilment of Conditions, alerting care providers and parties when defaults occur
• Recording Mental Health Act specific data including the date of absolute discharge under the Mental Health Act, recording episodes of absence without leave and how they ended and recording and monitoring a patient’s Section 117 entitlement. The system must support concurrent Sections when they arise.
• Support for booking and facilitating reviews by Second Opinion Appointed Doctors (SOADs)
• Support for the provision of Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services

Implementation and ongoing system support – Provision of services to support the implementation and ongoing use of the patient record system including but not limited to designing the solution for a customer, ensuring the necessary technical infrastructure is in place, provision and installation of the solution, codeveloping and installing local configurations (e.g. for decision support) using existing templates from elsewhere, supporting organisational change and transformation, monitoring utilisation and adoption, advising on how to promote utilisation, training, ongoing troubleshooting and support, maintenance, patching, development, incident response, backup and restore.

*Compliant with, as a minimum, the 10 standards in the National Data Guardian’s review of data security, an independent CareCert (or equivalent) assessment and in line with NHS Digital’s Encryption Guidance for Health and Care Organisations.

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Provision of services that support the development and implementation of a shared or integrated care record solutions within and across Integrated Care Systems (ICS) / Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STP) and/or at care provider organisation at neighbourhood, place, system, regional or national level including but not limited to:

Strategy development – to develop local, neighbourhood, place, system, regional or national technology architecture and implementation strategy for interoperability and information exchanges leveraging the national health and care record infrastructure, including but not limited to governance (including IG advice to ensure all data flows have clearly defined purposes and legal bases), user-centric solution design, making the case for change, engaging key stakeholders, identifying and supporting the commissioner to secure funding, identifying key barriers and designing solutions (for example aligning local processes and adhering to national standards), identifying and mitigating key risks and opportunities, supporting data quality improvement (including but not limited to targeted data quality performance reporting, outreach, education, training and other engagement and support to ensure good data quality practice is applied) and providing a detailed plan for transformation and change.

Implementation support – provision of a project management office and dedicated support to ensure that the new shared or integrated care record solution infrastructure is implemented effectively. Support includes but is not limited to supporting and training users, change management (including culture change and business transformation), information governance support (including but not limited to supporting creation and operation of IG policies; capturing and mapping all information assets ensuring GDPR requirements for processing activities are covered; definition of the purposes of data use; Privacy / Data Protection Impact Assessment; creation of data processing agreements, information sharing agreements and Fair-Processing / Privacy Notices; IG governance and compliance advice and assurance; support for the design, implementation and maintenance of organisational, process and technical controls that ensure data security and confidentiality), monitoring utilisation and identifying opportunities for further improvement, benefits management and realisation, call management of services and systems that would have a direct link to the implementation support structure including but not limited to third party suppliers, NHS care providers, private care organisations, local and national infrastructure (N3, HSCN), local access services and local care response.

Infrastructure – Provision of infrastructure services as an appropriate and secure collection of software, cloud services and / or hardware to enable real-time (or near real time) integration, exchange and storage of patient data as part of a shared or integrated care record solution and which provides appropriate read/write bidirectional access to detailed and/or summarised patient data by actors across a local health and care economy across multiple organisations and EPR solutions in line with overarching architectural standards as defined by NHS England and NHS Improvement, NHS Digital or NHSX.

Shared or integrated care record solutions – including those defined under the Local Health and Care Record programme (LHCR) – consist of a set of technical capabilities with the precise makeup being determined by each ICS / STP in line with national strategy and regional engagement. The precise specification and means of delivery of a shared or integrated care record solution that maintains patient security and provides linkages to an individual’s data held in other shared care record platforms is something that will evolve over time. Therefore, propositions that use approaches not fully captured in the characteristics below are supported. The specification will evolve with learning from all LHCR pilot sites. The main characteristics of a shared or integrated care record solution infrastructure are defined as:

• Being designed around user needs;
• Enabling the delivery of local, longitudinal care records for the delivery of integrated care;
• Being interoperable so that information can be shared securely (in line with information governance and cyber security requirements) as patients move across boundaries;
• Supporting directly and / or enabling a comprehensive block and incremental feed to dedicated solutions to support multiple individual patient care management, local population health management and de-identified feeds to non-patient care solutions such as business management and clinical research; and
• Providing data for national purposes such as statutory functions and for accessing data held nationally for wider regional use in a standard format agreed across the regions / nationally where appropriate.

The services of a shared or integrated care record solution infrastructure must include:

• Shared health and care record – Single solution or Interface with multiple provider systems across a health and social care economy to receive, link, de-duplicate, normalise and store multiple data sets using NHS Number to form coherent longitudinal patient records. These data sets should consist of structured data with access to other supporting data types as defined by FHIR specifications and support vendor-neutral exchange of other well adopted healthcare industry standards such as CDA and OpenEHR. Including the provision of access to real-time, detailed, bidirectional, read/write, fully shared health and care records for the purposes of direct care.
• Accommodation to make information available to non-exchange-capable providers – Support a web-based, patient-controlled method to make information securely viewable to providers or other users that do not use an EPR or use an EPR not capable of standards-based data sharing.
• Open APIs – Support for real-time access to data held by a Local Health and Care Record using APIs that support NHS FHIR specifications, RESTful interfaces and OAuth profiles for API security.
• Master citizen index – Support for a citizen index for the local population and for processing leavers and joiners.
• Record location – Support for discovery of what records exist for an individual within a local shared or integrated care record solution and the National Record Locator service using an NHS Number.
• Local event management – Support an event management service and publish/subscribe patterns for sharing event messages, alerts and notifications. Support for a subscription service so an event published by one entity can be sent to other entities based upon a subscription policy.
• National event management – Interfacing with a National Event Management Service where each shared or integrated care record solution acts as a publisher and subscriber for an arbitrary set of events defined by a national events authority.
• Access to shared and integrated care record solutions – Read and write access to patient records by professional and patient facing apps, subject to local access policies with access brokered by the Authorisations service working with key local stakeholders to understand requirements utilising privacy impact assessments and national and local policies.
• Federation broker – Support for a federation broker service for single sign-on so professionals and patients can authenticate to local apps using trusted identity providers. The federation broker to support management of Public Key Infrastructure based trust between entities established by a local trust framework agreement. Support for trust between STP federation brokers to enable cross-STP sign-on to apps and APIs. Support for the OpenID Connect protocol and protocol translation with SAML 2.0 for organisations with existing federated identity services.
• Authorisation service – Support for controlling access to APIs for cross-organisation use cases using an authorisation service that supports the OAuth 2.0 standard and patterns, and by applying data sharing policies and patient information sharing preferences established by local information sharing agreements.
• Information sharing agreement – Support for enabling local provider organisations to maintain control over their data in line with GDPR, how it is shared and used, by supporting machine readable and human readable data sharing agreements and policies. Support for machine readable information sharing policies to be used by the Authorisation service.
• Terminology and code sets – Support for nationally defined SNOMED, LOINC and dm+d code sets by providing a standardised interface for management of terminology used in the data content provided to a shared or integrated care record solution. This service will support the interoperability goal for shared semantics.
• Meta data definitions – Support for common meta data specification for patient records to facilitate discovery and matching.
• Directory of services – Support for a directory of services that can be used by providers across a local economy to determine what services exist, to search for relevant services and determine how to access services, via APIs, professional or patient portal access, administrator access.
• Cross ICS/STP data distribution – Interface and linking between shared or integrated care record solution infrastructures using distributed ledger services for sharing meta data for staff identities, events and patient consent preferences. To ensure that information can be shared in near real time across boundaries between shared or integrated care record solutions.
• De-id – Support for the policies and process, as per ICO guidelines, to remove potentially patient-identifiable information from a patient’s clinical record so that it can be used for secondary uses by linking with NHS Digital master reference indexes.
• Re-id – Support for re-identification of pseudonymised data in line with NHS policy and guidance.
• Audit – Support for creating entries in an audit log for every access to a patient record within a shared and integrated care record solution.
• Data landing – Complementary services for landing data sets into a shared or integrated care record solution, such as deduplication, codification from text, data cleansing, conversion of data structure and codes from other standards, e.g. transforming EMIS CRV format to HL7 V3 FHIR, and HL7V3 CDA to HL7 FHIR.
• Personal Health Record (PHR) data exchange – Support for data exchange between EPRs and PHRs (personally held records). To enable patients to provide patient sourced data and for clinicians and providers to share data with PHRs. Data sets should comply with FHIR specifications, ranging from sharing of test results to gathering patient observations and queries.
• Patient accounts – Support for patients to create an online account using a trusted patient identity linked to their NHS Number so they can set consents and other preferences, monitor record access, subscribe to receive alerts and access records and documents.
• Caseload management and workflow – Support for managing cohorts and patients according to pathway workflows so patient care is coordinated between provider organisations.
• Structured medications data – Support sharing structured medications data across all care settings for a variety of uses such as population health management, risk stratification, patient assessment, medications reconciliation, and decision support. Services include support for: Care Connect FHIR standards for sharing structured medications data; read/write access to patient records using FHIR and REST based APIs; dm+d standard; implementation of dose syntax translation as this becomes standardised.

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Provision of informatics and analytics to support Population Health Management, whole system planning, strategy development, management, assurance and evaluation (cost, quality, clinical outcomes) including but not limited to:

Population Health Intelligence – Capability to work with a variety of system partners to undertake and build engagement for Population Health Management interventions, developing cross-system consensus and shared ownership of a ‘case for change’ built on provision of advice and descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analysis to develop and support the optimum method for delivering Population Health Management including but not limited to reviewing and transforming current health and social care service provision across and within populations (including needs assessment); workforce modelling support and tools; understanding the impact of wider determinants of health on populations (including but not limited to how health, housing, social and environmental care services impact on the health of a population); defining and identifying relevant segments and cohorts within populations driving cost, utilisation (including under-utilisation driven by barriers to accessing care) and quality challenges (and the associated opportunities to improve care provision) including: health inequality groups, preventable and existing conditions and gaps in care; comparing population groups, peers, national and international best practice; designing and evaluating risk stratification approaches; identifying future population needs, spend, growth and change drivers using simulation or modelling techniques; actuarial analysis to evaluate current and future utilisation, effectiveness and cost; modelling to determine eligibility and priorities for different preventive interventions based on predicted risk and impactability; undertaking an impact assessment to determine the risk of false positive and false negative results; financial impact assessment (to calculate the return on investment) and equality impact assessment (to ensure that the preventive approach will not inadvertently exacerbate health inequalities); data visualisations including but not limited to individual patient timelines (for example and where appropriate “Theographs”), pathway diagrams (“Bow Tie diagrams”) and maps of disease incidence (linked, where appropriate to mapping of contributory factors such as air pollution); evaluating the impact and opportunity cost of different preventive interventions using experimental and quasi-experimental approaches (e.g. A/B testing, propensity-score matched cohort studies); application of analysis to support an options appraisal process for proposed future service changes or reconfiguration and the deployment of other operational research techniques as appropriate to underpin decision support mechanisms; development of tools to enable the scaling of an intervention (for example decision support tools built directly into workflows).

Business and clinical intelligence – Provision of capabilities which enable design, production and dissemination of spend, cost (including PLICS and programme budgeting), quality and clinical outcomes information to enable planning and management of services in a health system including but not limited to: integration of financial activity, outcomes and finance data across care settings; provision of analytics (including actuarial analysis) to enable greater transparency of activity and utilisation, prediction and prioritisation of spend, identification of unwarranted variation and to support management of pooled / shared capitated budgets at both a patient and population level including but not limited to managing quality of health and social care services (including clinical audit); monitoring service utilisation, health and social care pathway mapping and compliance, patient experience and outcomes; supporting budget planning, management and reporting; monitoring the value for money for allocations towards care of patients; monitoring activity and cost compliance against contract and agreed plans; monitoring provider quality, demand, experience and outcomes against contract and plans; comparing provider quality, demand, experience and patient outcomes against contract and agreed plans; forecasting underlying demand in the medium to long term across different care settings that reflect international best practice, demographic trends and new technology solutions for example forecasting the number of beds required in different care settings, the workforce required, utilising data from referral management systems to identify gaps in care pathway and service provision and the potential for technology to deliver better outcomes for patients; supporting the improvement of provider data quality; comparing performance and managing variation across health and social care professionals, services, providers and systems; comparing expected levels of activity against targets and plans; ensuring compliance with evidence and guidance; maximising services and outcomes within financial envelopes; supporting benchmarking, comparisons, regulation and assurance at all levels of the health and social care system; producing standardised, regulatory compliance and mandatory national reports and locally configurable / self-service reports.

Research tools – Provision of tools to support the use of de-identified data to drive research and innovation across health and social care. These tools will enable the use of the unique data assets within the NHS to benefit service users through resultant improvements in care provision facilitated by research findings. Research tools must have the capability to link and process data across health and social care and information exchanges. These tools will: enable researchers and modellers to construct theories and system models to interpret data for research purposes (supporting data driven study planning); span data collection, processing, modelling and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data; identify and manage cohorts of patients for research purposes (such as defined demographic groups or target sites); support digitally enhanced clinical trials.

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Provision of informatics, analytics and digital tools to support direct patient care including:

Decision support tools that support clinical staff to utilise evidence to make faster and better interventions at the point of care with a patient – Development and deployment of locally configurable tools that utilise patient data to support clinical decision making in real time, embedded in clinical workflows. Services include but are not limited to systems and applications which utilise, or are extensions to, electronic patient record systems and/or Local Health and Care Records to flag potential interventions (including through the use of risk algorithms and predictive modelling), provide safety alerts (for example alerting about medication interactions and automated alerts when a patient’s condition worsens / is forecast to worsen), analytics to identify optimal patient pathways and flag them to providers of care and analysis and continuous improvement of support tools to evaluate their utilisation, efficacy, value and impact. Solutions must be locally configurable and must have been through all relevant approvals.

Integrated care co-ordination and management – Provision of insight and tools to support how care is managed in near real time. Services include but are not limited to systems and applications which utilise, or extensions to, electronic patient record systems and/or Local Health and Care Records to enable the development of integrated care plans that can be populated and updated by authorised parties (including but not limited to patients and multi disciplinary teams); support for tailored personal care approaches (based on patient preference, genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors) flag potential interventions (including through the use of risk algorithms and predictive modelling) and trigger alerts; analytics to identify optimal patient pathways and flag them to providers of care; analysis and continuous improvement of support tools to evaluate their utilisation, efficacy and impact; flagging of packages of care where the outcomes appear to be suboptimal; capacity management and predictive modelling to plan for and manage surges in demand; robust use of economic models to optimise decision making.

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Provision of support for surveys including but not limited to:

• Providing advice and support on survey methodologies (e.g. census or sample, sample size and design, online, paper or mixed mode), survey design, communication and promotion to ensure good response rates.
• Supporting question design, selection, development and testing
• Producing survey materials including but not limited to printing questionnaires, covering letters, reminders, online surveys etc
• Distributing and conducting paper and, subject to compliance with relevant guidance and standards, online and mixed mode surveys including supporting completion and addressing queries where required
• Management of response data, response rate monitoring, data entry, data cleaning (including removing duplicate responses) quality assurance and secure transfer
• Publishing data and overall results to a high quality standard for a variety of audiences
• Presenting data for improvement purposes
• Specialisms in working with specific groups of people e.g. Children and Young people, people with a learning disability, or a focus on particular condition e.g. mental health
• Appropriate handling of data including person / patient / staff identifiable data including storage, retention and management according to GDPR

NHS Staff Survey provision must also:

• Be conducted in line with guidance published by the National Co-ordination Centre and support secure transfer to the Co-ordination Centre
• Include the specified “core” NHS Staff Survey questionnaire without deviation

Provision of a range of expert advice, analysis, transformational and change management capability to design and build the necessary infrastructure for an ICS / STP function effectively. Services include but are not limited to:

Development of service change and reconfiguration proposals – assistance with initial viability assessments for proposed changes; engagement and consultation (as required) with key stakeholders including but not limited to patients, the public, clinicians and health service managers; research and reform idea generation; developing detailed reform proposals; scaling evidence based innovation and good practice; drafting and co-production of Pre Consultation Business Cases (PCBCs) and Decision Making Business Case (DMBCs); development of outline and full business cases for capital intensive projects, generating and presenting a clear and robust evidence base for changes.

Transformation project and programme management (expertise and capacity) – development of capability to deliver change at pace, provision of a project management office to oversee, manage and implement the change with the right project managers and clinical expertise.

Specialist advice on organisational redesign, governance and payment and contract reform – Provision of advice on organisational structures including their design, barriers to implementation, potential implementation paths, enablers / key requirements for success, benefits and disbenefits of different models and supporting the development of the case for change (this should include advice on redesigning existing organisations such as GP practices to improve resilience and sustainability); the identification and quantification of prioritised early interventions to alleviate pressure on finances, patient access and safety, this advice would be underpinned by expert analytics based on population health forecasts and actuarial analysis; provision of change management expertise and, where appropriate, leadership; Advice on business continuity planning, testing and resilience; advising on asset usage, management and rationalisation (including estates, infrastructure and staffing resources); supporting the implementation of blended payment models within a local health economy; utilisation of value and outcome based contracting, where appropriate, to drive and change culture across the ICS / STP; supporting the adoption and management of system control totals across an ICS / STP; supporting the application and use of national and international best practice including template contracts, system models and guidance; supporting the development and procurement of outcome based contracts including the development of measurable and robust outcomes, development of models to assess improvements in the value of the service delivered, outcome based payment mechanisms and models for assessing causality and attribution.

Workforce and leadership development support including but not limited to:

• Transformational workforce planning: Support development of a vision for the systems workforce that is able to deliver new models of care, including out of hospital models; tools dynamic modelling and support, to understand the implications to the workforce of the new vision; system wide strategic resource planning across organisational boundaries; redefinition of existing staff roles (clinical and non-clinical) and development of appropriate training and support to implement changes; support for the system with workforce HR analysis and planning, including developing the new models of care and a focus on primary care where necessary.
• Workforce development: Support to provide clinical supervision across providers e.g. re-registration; support to ensure the systems workforce is adequately trained and developed to fulfil their roles including statutory and mandatory training; provision of specialist advice and support to manage changes to the workforce (including transition to/from other organisations and appropriate application of TUPE, etc.).
• System leadership development: Providing support, training, development and advice that offers executive, senior team and board capability building to aid strategic decision making and problem-solving. Support should consider and balance the needs of the cross-system leadership and individual organisations, so that the system is balanced and robust.
• System leadership support: Support to the system leadership to create a membership organisation with the processes and structures that allow the system to function, manage itself and make cross-organisational decisions; supporting the leadership and main components of the system governance including administrative support to the ICS / STP board and other formal meetings.

Specialist support for ICS development at system, place and neighbourhood level – Provision of services to support the establishment of Integrated Care Systems, Primary Care Networks and Integrated Care Partnerships. Tailored support to develop and implement service change and reconfiguration proposals, specialist advice on organisational redesign, governance and payment and contract reform and workforce and leadership development support including but not limited to embedding Population Health Management in delivery, change management and workforce redesign, development of service change and reconfiguration proposals, primary care demand management and capacity planning solutions, PMO support, system design / redesign, provider development, support to implement local / national initiatives (e.g. reformed NHS 111 services), corporate services design, build and sourcing and governance and financial advisory support.

All of the services in this Service Category include appropriate support for communications and engagement – Supporting the identification and engagement of key stakeholders including clinicians, CCGs and Local Authorities; advising on and, where required, undertaking compliant consultation on proposed structure changes; strategic communications advice and support including proactive and reactive media management across media platforms, advising on media lines and dealing with press enquiries.

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Provision of services to support the implementation of shared decision making and self-care programmes, personal health budgets and integrated personal commissioning, digital and remote technologies and personal health record which enable the activation and empowerment of individuals to more effectively manage their own health, care and wellbeing.

These products and services will enable people to live with greater independence, confidence and safety, and in many cases reduce the need for unplanned care.

Support for implementing shared decision making and self-care programmes (including social prescribing) including but not limited to:

• Identification of patients for intervention – developing and utilising best in class technologies, data analysis/risk stratification, patient activation data & interpretation combined with local knowledge to identify where the most impact can be made on patient outcomes (including proactive identification of patients for intervention).
• Advisory services participation – expertise and advice on local strategies on supporting the activation of patients that helps identify and suggest best practice to an ICS / STP including but not limited to:

• • Support to deliver tailored interventions including:
  • Patient activation measurement;
  • Personalised care and support planning;
  • Health coaching, structured self-management education programmes and peer support;
  • Advising on specialist technologies, e.g. apps and wearables;
  • Social prescribing and community capacity building.

• Training and culture change support for front-line staff and care professionals so they understand the principles of self-care including: care and support planning and health coaching skills;
• Regular review of people’s needs, outcomes assessed & reporting on cost/benefits;
• Matching individual care and support needs to access appropriate technology and monitoring devices including the setting of parameters and alert thresholds.

Support for implementing Personal Health Budgets and Integrated Personalised Commissioning support as a means of specialist support for those with complex needs, providing people with more choice and control of their own care, whilst transforming the relationship between people and professionals into a true partnership to determine how to achieve the best outcomes. Services include but are not limited to:

• IT solutions to support integrated personal commissioning and Personal Health Budgets including: proactive case finding in which people are identified (using appropriate risk stratification and impactability methodologies) and offered information and advice about self-care support or Integrated Personal Commissioning and Personal Health Budgets; finance platforms to enable effective management of Personal Health Budgets and facilitate required transactions; marketplace platforms that enable individuals to identify and purchase care and support in line with their care plans.
• Care planning including: Personalised care and support planning through multi-disciplinary teams, which ensure people have a person-centred conversation about support to help them manage their health and wellbeing; implementation of a single, summary, care and support plan; supporting shared decision-making, particularly for preference-sensitive conditions such as back pain, prostate cancer and breast cancer.
• System redesign to enable an ICS / STP to effectively design its services to enable the use of Personal Health Budgets and Integrated Personal Budgets including but not limited to: advice on how to combine resources from across the health and care system to empower people to achieve their health and wellbeing outcomes; support with stakeholder mapping and communications and engagement strategies so that all people who could benefit from IPC or personal health budgets know what it is, who it is for and the difference it will make; implementation of a common planning framework using six stages (1. Context 2. Preparation 3. Conversation 4. Record and Agree 5. Make it happen 6. Review); integrated, proportionate processes for personalised care and support planning (incorporating Patient Activation Measure (PAM) embedded to tailor the planning approach to applicable individuals); support programmes for the development of personalised care and support planning to all relevant frontline staff and managers ensuring the training is co-delivered with people with lived experience of care and support; implementation of Integrated Personal Commissioning (IPC) hub / multidisciplinary teams (MDT’s) including a single, named care coordinator.
• Implementation support and management for Personal Health Budgets to put in place all three options for managing the money (with access to direct payment support services and third party budgets); a joined-up process for IPC personal budget implementation and review and an individual statement of resources for the people who can have an IPC personal budget which provides an indicative budget; managing risk in relation to personal budgets and integrated personal budgets i.e. Clinical, Financial, Reputational using risk enablement panels where appropriate to support difficult decision-making; governance framework; checking at appropriate intervals whether the personalised care and support plan is achieving the agreed outcomes for both the person and their carers; use of evaluation, activity metrics and any local measures to count and measure the difference that personalised care approaches are making to people locally; support to undertake specific evidence and benefit work to understand financial impact of personalised care.

Access to digital and remote technologies that enable patients to manage their own care – sourcing and / or provision of Telehealth (remote monitoring of patients in their own homes to anticipate exacerbations early and build their self-care competencies); Telecare (technologies in the citizen’s home and community to minimise risk and provide urgent notification of adverse events); Telemedicine / Teleconsultation (remote peer-to-peer support between clinicians and/or consultations between patients and clinicians); Telecoaching (telephone advice from a coach to support people by building knowledge, skills and confidence to change behaviours); Self-care apps (applications that raise awareness and help citizens to manage their own health) that interoperate with Electronic Patient Records and Local Health and Care Records including their design, deployment, management and ongoing review including but not limited to:

• Solution design (including specification and, where appropriate, build to local requirements);
• Provision / procurement of the solution;
• Solution deployment (including mobilisation, launch, support for training and monitoring of utilisation);
• Evaluation of the impact of deployed solutions and ongoing review of efficacy, outcomes and cost/benefit.

Personal health records – enabling patients, women using maternity services and parents of children to access their (or their children’s) care record and care plans, update data and send secure messages to care providers.
Provision of a semantically interoperable personal health record with the capability to read and write back information into an electronic patient record, including their care record and care plans, to integrate with the NHS App and to flag up key messages and alerts to the patient. Solutions must:

• Be untethered – As defined by the PHR Adoption Toolkit
• Provide access to trusted information from both local sources (e.g. local clinicians) and from validated national sources (e.g. NHS.UK content)
• Provide read access to information about a citizen held in the professional record(s).
• Allow data to be captured and shared by citizens including direct integration with shared records and connected devices
• Allow citizens to set and manage their consent for data to be shared.
• In the case of maternity ePHRs, facilities to allow the woman to create a Personalised Care and Support Plan for sharing with clinicians.
• In the case of Electronic Personal Child Health Records (ePCHRs) supporting the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme to all children aged up to 5, features to mitigate safeguarding risks, tools for parents to support their child’s development, and failsafe alerts to prompt parents to engage in the recommended HCP interventions.

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Provision of services to support the efficient delivery of services within a health system by optimising resource utilisation, managing health pathways and enabling more integrated planning and delivery.

Patient pathway optimisation and care model design – Provision of services to implement best practice and innovation in patient pathways focused on continuous improvement and evidence based change utilising nationally and internationally recognised best practice. Services include but are not limited to assistance with identification of opportunities associated with unwarranted variation in patient outcomes, performance and/or cost (including for example by utilising solutions to automate the orchestration of pathways of care); prioritisation of areas for improvement; alignment and co-ordination of transfer of care between health and social care settings by standardising referral processes across a care system, provision of systems and solutions to automate the orchestration of pathways of care (including utilisation of AI), implementing trusted assessment schemes and establishing centralised referral management hubs; guidance on identification of best practice nationally and internationally; advice on clinical policy development and decommissioning; support commissioning and/or decommissioning of services and pathways; development of continuous feedback loops so that improvements can quickly be fed back and acted upon, making quality improvement an iterative process.

Patient flow solutions (including control centres) that enable management of resources to maximise patient flow including but not limited to provision of bed management solutions to enable more efficient discharge and predict bed utilisation; urgent and emergency care access management; design, build, deployment and implementation of control centres which bring together staff from across an organisation or health system with real time / near real time data, intelligence and decision support tools (including safety, predictive and performance analytics) to enable real time decision making about capacity (planned and unplanned), forecast surges and optimise discharge routes; capacity improvement of key processes in the patient pathway utilising best-practice and/or re-designing services; development of leadership and management behaviours to support efficient use of resources; use of tracking technologies such as real time locating systems or mobile devices to optimise scheduling, patient flows and resource utilisation (such as outpatients, theatres or staff) and technology solutions to automate the orchestration of pathways of care both within and across care settings

Digitisation of NHS Continuing HealthCare

Provision of systems / digital capabilities required to deliver either in full or part a Digital CHC system that is compliant with The National Framework for CHC and FNC (revised Oct 2018) and all related legislation, including both modular and enterprise wide solutions. The solution must meet (whether through the lead organisation or in partnership with another supplier) all the global requirements set out in the Digital CHC technical specification for commissioners and one or more of the core CHC functions.

To note, the Digital CHC specification for commissioners (both high level and technical versions) have been designed to be used in a modular fashion. Depending on supplier capability commissioners may pick and choose, and / or mix and match global and core CHC functional requirements amongst one or more suppliers.

Services are included but not limited to:

• Workflow management
• Data capture and document management
• Data and information including reporting and dashboards
• Capturing and administration of all types of CHC referral forms
• Management of PHB budgets
• Brokerage and Market management
• Invoicing and payments
• Reviews and case management

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The provision of workforce and HR software and related solutions and services that help to deliver the NHS Long Term Plan and NHS People Plan and enable the NHS to provide the highest possible quality of safe care services through optimised resource utilisation at national, regional, local system, organisational and individual site levels. All solutions must help the NHS to become a truly modern employer, enable evidence-based change, utilise national and international recognised best practice and innovations in workforce management, deployment and development of staff. Offerings may include both modular and enterprise wide solutions that support the efficient delivery of health and care services and empower the workforce with tools that NHS staff need.

The aim is that all workforce systems purchased and used by all NHS organisations meet national data and interoperability standards and as such all suppliers are expected to agree to terms that require adherence to these standards. These standards include the requirements that all workforce systems will enable access controls using single sign on, digital identity and digital passport technologies complementing the standard secure access via user names and passwords.

Related solutions and services should include, but are not limited to, solutions that:

• support multidisciplinary transformation of the health and care workforce (including doctors, nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, pharmacists, healthcare scientists, dentists, non-clinical professions, social workers and others) and all health and care professions that work together across the health and care system;
• enable the full potential of the workforce by automating routine or repetitive tasks (and some complex tasks), implement Machine Learning and utilise Augmented or Artificial Intelligence, including resource optimisation solutions that improve overall productivity and release time to care;
• align and co-ordinate the safe transfer of permanent and temporary workers between health and social care settings by standardising processes across a health and care eco-system;
• support the development of continuous feedback loops so that improvements can quickly be fed back and acted upon, making quality improvement an iterative process;
• support resource management including the use of location tracking to enable worklist management, journey management and digital assignment, notification and monitoring of actions to care professionals, taking into account case load and case mix;
• provide strategic, programme and project support, including advice on policy development, implementation and decommissioning.
• Allow integration of workforce solutions with clinical systems, Electronic Staff Record (ESR), expenses claim solutions and external/corporate calendars (including MS Outlook / Office 365) and web enabled appointment solutions that support the management of joint electronic clinical/patient facing diaries and corporate calendars and other relevant integrations.

Services within the Workforce category include, but are not limited to:

eRostering, job planning, temporary staffing software solutions and digital staff passports solutions 

eRostering – Solutions, software and implementation support to enable the intelligent planning and allocation of shifts to clinical and care staff employees, based upon staff preferences, training opportunities, skill-mix and patient need. Eligible solutions will offer universal or profession and sector specific functionality; support competency-based deployment models, both within and across organisational boundaries; enable dynamic scheduling and deployment according to patient acuity and evidence-based staffing models; enable clinical teams to work more flexibly and intelligently, using mobile applications, journey planning, e-expenses and resource management tools; provide user profiles, notifications, alerts and approval processes to ensure regulatory compliance and improve payroll, HR and bank booking processes and sickness management; employ sophisticated business intelligence and reporting to improve operational and financial performance, patient pathways, productivity and talent management.

Job planning – Solutions, software and implementation support to produce multidisciplinary, service-line job plans, based upon optimal patient pathways and organisational needs. Software will be used in conjunction with appraisal and revalidation systems to record, approve and review individual employees’ duties, responsibilities, accountabilities and objectives. Solutions will be built upon business and user requirements, and encompass user profiles, notifications and approval processes. Job plans will adhere to professional contract terms and conditions and support various business functions, such as internal reporting, external recharges and streamlined payroll processes. The solutions will support sophisticated business intelligence and reporting to improve operational and financial performance, productivity and talent management.

Temporary staffing software – Software to manage bank staff registration, shift booking and notification, and payment processes. Solutions will:

• support a variety of temporary staffing models, such as direct booking and multiple application review.
• integrate professional details and training records with e-rostering vacancy information to support a competency-based approach to workforce deployment.
• support bank staff self-management and shift and payment tracking through a mobile application.
• provide sophisticated business intelligence, to support organisations and collaborative bank partnerships to understand vacancy information, set dynamic bank rates and improve associated workforce planning and management processes.

*Note, acceptance onto the framework is for the supply of software to manage the deployment of temporary staff only, it does not give the right to supply temporary staff to the NHS as an employment agency, master-vendor, or vender-neutral supplier, or as an outsourced supplier of bank staff. NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts may only procure temporary staff (agency or bank) from an agency on one of the frameworks approved by the NHS Improvement & NHS England Temporary Staffing Team, and all workers supplied may only be procured in line with the terms and conditions of the framework.

Digital staff passports solutions – Software, solutions and related services that support staff movement between health and care organisations by enabling employment and training records to be passported between organisations and between workforce systems.

Digital staff passports are used as a secure, safe and digital method for exchanging verifiable information, in the form of verifiable credentials that can be used by employers (and their workflow systems) to confirm an individual’s status so that they do not need to unnecessarily repeat employment checks and training.

• Solutions will include, but are not limited to: Be digital, and support the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model;
• Be modular and interoperable with multiple providers of digital wallets and enabling infrastructure of VC ecosystems;
• Meet or be working towards Government Digital Service (GDS) service standards, including accessibility;
• Enable the removal of unnecessary duplication of employment checks and training when staff move between employing organisations, whether that be temporary or permanent;
• Enable staff to hold a verified digital identity in accordance with Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)’s UK digital identity and attribute trust framework schemes;
• Comply with UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and provide passport holders with control and visibility by giving the user the ability to accept or reject information, enable them to share their information with other employers and have visibility of who they shared their information with and when;
• Enable the issuance of verifiable credentials, in accordance with data standards and schemas that NHS England and Improvement or NHSX will progressively define;
• Interoperate with authentication and authorisation services used by organisations, and align with identity and access control policies and standards;
• Enable individuals to hold verifiable credentials in ‘digital wallets’ as apps on smart phones and to present credentials to other entities;
• Enable the request and verification of credentials;
• Enable interoperability with workforce systems so they can consume verified attributes received from credentials, and so reduce the need for data entry;
• May include Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions that provide a shared platform for many organisations to have a capability for issuance and verification of credentials;
• May include software that enables the issuance of credentials, perhaps as part of its workflow system;
• Employer solutions should be vendor-neutral to allow for ease of staff movement across national, devolved nations, regional and cross-regional borders, local system, organisational and individual site levels.
• Allow integration/interoperability of employer solutions with current workforce systems, including but not limited to: Electronic Staff Record (ESR), Occupational Health system(s), Training Information System(s), recruitment system(s) and e-rostering system(s) in accordance with interoperability standards that NHS England and Improvement or NHSX will progressively define;
• Enable the adherence to national data, interface and interoperability standards and governance;
• Enable the adoption of digital staff passports more widely, including specialist user research, product and service design, project management services.

Note: A staff authentication capability is not in scope for this service line.