Product Development in a Data World

This month marks a very special milestone for me. It’s almost exactly one year since I joined NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) as Lead Delivery Manager for ‘Data and Insight’ directorate.

It’s been an incredible journey and I’ve been made to feel so welcome. But if I had to pick one thing that I am most proud of over this period, it will be the establishment of Product Development Capability within NHSBSA’s Data and Insight directorate.

Our vision as a directorate is to transform data into actionable insight, empowering people to make decisions. Moving to a product-based approach contributes towards delivering this vision by enabling iterative delivery of benefits and continuous improvement of our services based on user-centric design and customer feedback.

Over the last year, we have:

• Set up 6 new product teams within the directorate
• Transitioned to a new iterative model for existing services, with a focus on delivery
• Introduced delivery management and agile business analysis capabilities with the directorate
• Moved to Agile methodology, which included setting up new ways of working, changes to existing processes, and coaching teams and stakeholders on the framework
• Facilitated a culture shift to move towards a product-based approach and kudos to the teams for managing to successfully do that. It’s no mean feat to embrace a new way of working in the midst of a pandemic (and working remotely), all the while continuing to deliver at pace and achieve brilliant results that are recognised by everyone.

 

So what does that look like in practice for Data and Insight at the NHSBSA?

Our product teams have achieved some major deliverables and releases over the last year.

Here are the highlights:

 

ePACT2

The vision for ePACT2 is to provide timely and accurate prescriptions data to stakeholders so that they can make informed decisions to improve patient safety and patient outcomes.

• Polypharmacy Dashboard – This helps Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and GP practices understand variation in prescribing of multiple medicines and at different age bands. It will also help to identify patients who are more likely to be exposed to the risks that can be associated with taking large numbers of medicines or certain combinations of medicines.
• Anti-Microbial Dashboard for Urinary Tract Infection – Aimed at Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)/Practice Users, this dashboard gives data and metrics which support the new RightCare Anti-microbial UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) focus packs. Users can identify the prescribing of antibiotics based on various criteria and enable local health systems to identify opportunities for further improvement in safe and effective management of antibiotics for UTIs.
• Sodium Valproate Dashboard – This dashboard allows CCGs/Practice Users to monitor the prescribing of Sodium Valproate for women of potential child-bearing age. This allows users to identify patients who are at risk of becoming pregnant while taking this drug and reduce the potential risk to unborn babies. The dashboard was developed in collaboration with the Valproate Safety Implementation Group (VSIG).
• Expenses Head Remuneration Reports – This covered GP Referral pathway, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis C Kit and Flu Premise & Refridge Claim, Covid vaccination, Covid Premises and Refrigeration.

 

eDEN

The Dental product team produce reports and analysis via the eDEN solution to help drive and inform decisions for several customers such as NHS England and Improvement, Department of Health, Wales Government, NHSBSA internal users such as Dental service and Provider Assurance.

The team are currently looking to make this a one-stop-shop for primary care dental data by continuing to work with customers on day-to-day business and make the required changes to the solution from a customer-driven perspective. Their vision is to enable all dentistry professionals to incorporate eDEN into their core working day.

• Provider Rollout for England and Wales – A dashboard product was developed for each dental contract to replace the need for PDF/Excel bursting and allow dental contract holders to self-serve. Roll out Dental services at a provider level. This will enable around 4k additional users to the solution.
• Dental Health Board / Commissioner Roll out – This provides a view of aggregated versions of the dashboard for commissioners and a version for Wales helping senior users utilise data and give informed decisions on the activity being carried out.
• COVID-19 Assurance Dashboard – This helps Clinical Advisors to engage with Regional Team Commissioners and discuss data findings in a meaningful way.
• Dental Contract Reform (Alpha phase) – Released new ‘STAR’ schema for internal users to allow for reports to be created from this and validated against the information the NHSBSA has on file.
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) COVID-19 Claims Report – This was generated to report on the total number of claims regarding the use of PPE for Dental Services for the period of 2020/21. This will showcase the average cost of a PPE and model of how much the PPE cost across the whole landscape of primary care (GP, Pharmacy, Ophthalmic, Dental).

 

eOPS

The Ophthalmic product team produce reports and analysis via the eOPS solution to help drive and inform decisions for several customers, from Government level to NHSBSA internal users. The team are currently looking to expand the current user base and grow the service to meet its full potential. The aim is to enable all Ophthalmic professionals to incorporate eOPS2 into their core working day.

• Release of eOPS version 2 Dashboard – Dashboard was updated to reflect changeover of data provider and GOS form submission route from paper to electronic, allowing customers to continue to view activity.
• Provider Assurance Tactical Sampling – Implemented to automatically generate desired sampling approach from Provider Assurance.
• Implementation of OAC maps to Dashboards – This enables customers to view data in a geographical view.

 

Enterprise Data Warehouse 

This product team aims to ensure the NHSBSA’s Data Warehouse is easy to use, flexible, low maintenance, and expandable by creating and maintaining the core database engine functions for ingestion and processing of data.

• Oracle Cloud Migration – The Data Warehouse was migrated to a new cloud environment that’s more efficient and is expected to lead to significant cost savings.
• MGMT Security – Security aspects in the Data Warehouse were improved to limit access to the core functions, ensuring greater stability and access controls.
• Improving Prescriptions Dataset – The prescriptions dataset was improved with the addition of new data items relating to the Indexes of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) for England and calculating patient distance figures. Fields including distances to nearest GP and nominated pharmacies now allow new analyses to be created, for insight into how people from different areas, including deprived areas, are using these services.
• Data Dictionary Automation – The team automated tasks associated with the population of the Data Dictionary tool, giving insight and clarity around the data we hold.

 

Flex Data Warehouse

The flex team engages in data projects for a number of business areas, offering Data as a Service functionality, covering ELT only (data ingestion), ELT +RPD (data ingestion + modelling), and ELT+RPD+BI (data ingestion, modelling and business intelligence dashboards.

The product team works with the following business areas to ingest, model, and store data and create reporting systems based on business and user needs.

• English Infected Blood Support Scheme Business Area
• Overseas Health Service Business Area
• Pensions Business Area
• Citizens Business Area
• Workforce Business Area

 

GP Survey Reporting

In the 2019 manifesto, 50,000,000 additional GP appointments were promised to improve access to General Practice, improve patient experience of General Practice and improve patient outcomes.

To measure that these improvements are being delivered, and to contribute to future incentivisation for GPs through the Investment and Impact Fund (IIF), NHS England and Improvement (NHSE&I) is required to deliver a Patient Experience Measure. The Patient Experience Measure will capture and measure aspects of a patient’s experience of a health care appointment with their General Practice in as close to real-time as possible.

The reporting aspects of this work are being delivered by this newly formed product team within NHSBSA’s ‘Data and Insight’ directorate.

The team have just released the GP Summary Dashboard that will help to capture and measure aspects of a patient experience. They have also been producing monthly summary reports for the GP Trail group.