Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) portal
This is the beta assessment report for the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) portal service, on 1st April 2022.
Service Standard assessment report
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) portal
| From: | Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO) |
| Assessment date: | 01/04/2022 |
| Stage: | Beta |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | Department of Health & Social Care |
Service description
The PPE Portal is an online platform which allows PPE distribution to frontline health and care staff, and other eligible users free of charge. The PPE portal serves a range of health, care and public sector providers including GPs, adult social care, dentists, orthodontists, community pharmacies, optometrists, children’s social care providers, drug and alcohol services, other government departments, local authorities, independent sector providers who carry out NHS work, and more. This covers millions of staff, patients, clients, and service users, in England. The PPE Portal offers a range of PPE items, including masks, gloves, gowns, aprons, hand sanitiser, visors and many more.
Service users
Main users of the service are:
- General Practitioners
- Adult Social Care (including care homes and community care)
- Dentists
- Orthodontists
- Community pharmacies
- Optometrists
- Children’s social care providers
- Drug and alcohol services
- Other government departments
- Local authorities
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service met point 1 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had drawn on several different types of relevant insight, such as complaints data and call logs
- the list of external users was iterated and expanded as new evidence appeared
- there were an impressive number of users included across these different data sources, although the panel noted that this was heavily skewed towards self-report measures of satisfaction. Traditional user research methods that provide good information on needs and behaviour (interviews and usability testing) were present but below the level that the panel would expect for a service at this stage
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure that there is a strong focus on evidenced user needs from methods such as usability testing. This will allow for issues to be picked up pro-actively and for design to be continuously iterated
- if there is longevity in the service, the team may wish to do more usability testing with a wider range of users (including admin users, and new users who are completely unfamiliar with the service)
- maintaining good relationships with local stakeholders such as comms and engagement teams and service owners, so that there is no repeat of the blocker on research described during the alpha phase
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service met point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- throughout the design iteration process the team has thought about how they can streamline the user journey across the NHS website and GOV.UK. The example the team gave about how they had included order limits inline with the user experience showed how they were removing complexity from the journey and keeping the user all within the same platform to find the information they need
- the features they have introduced, such as the functionality to quickly reorder the same order list, shows how they have understood their user needs and iterated
- the service team plans to do further research into how users store PPE. The panel encourages this in order to help the team start to build up a more end-to-end view of the user journey and ensure the digital service touchpoint is not causing problems in the physical world later down the line
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider if and how they migrate to existing purchasing platforms used within the health and care space if there is longevity in the service. For example (https://www.nhssourcing.co.uk/web/login.html). The wider user journey of purchasing was not well articulated which could mean some missed opportunities
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team has worked hard to be able to provide logistics updates to their users, this was identified as one of the biggest pain points with v1 of the service
- user support is easy to access
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- get a content review. The team told us there is very little take up of support via email but they couldn’t understand why. If the team feels users could be better supported via email or it would have a significant impact on costs to nudge users to the email they may wish to conduct further research in this area. Regardless of this, the content in the email triage flow does not make sense and needs reviewing. Overall the service would benefit from a review by an NHS content design specialist. The content design lead in NHS Digital might be able to help
- consider how insight from user support feedback can be used to inform the backlog if there is longevity in the service as it is. It is unclear how insight from user support is fed back into the design of the services. The panel did not see examples of iteration informed by user support data
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had a little drop-off throughout their conversation funnels demonstrating at a macro level how there is little cause for concern
- the team showed how they have used the NHS design system as a starting point, then built on design patterns specific to e-commerce that were not available to them
- the team showed how the content of the site adapts and changes based on the sector the user is from. This meant that the user is only able to view and purchase goods they are eligible for, removing complexity for the user
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider users ordering by phone. Likely due to lack of time in the assessment, the panel gained little insight into the users’ experience of ordering via phone. A future panel may wish to understand why users are ordering by phone - if any insight could improve the digital journey. They may also wish to understand how the user journey is then consistent, for example, how these users can receive the same logistics updates if they can not use the online channels. The service team may wish to understand more about these journeys
- consider the login journey. The login journey presents some barriers to users, user support data hinted at this, as does the very brief amount of time we spent on analytics. The pattern the team is using is not consistent with other logins used in the NHS space. Should these issues continue the service team may wish to align the design with the existing NHS patterns
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service met point 5 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has conducted automated accessibility testing and resolved or plans to resolve the majority of issues. Some accessibility issues will remain, but due to Magento platform constraints, these issues would be costly to resolve. The team assured the panel these issues do not break users’ journeys but it was inferred they are more confusing and long
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to consider the balance of risks around time out. The panel observed frequent instances of time out in their usage of the service. The user does have the option to manually extend the session, however, this could unfairly impact users with access needs. This is a careful balance of risk and the service team should continue to question if they have addressed that balance correctly. Looking at data in regards to the number of timeouts occurring would provide them with a better view as to whether they are making appropriate decisions
- conduct accessibility testing with real users who use assistive technologies and have access needs, should the service have longevity. The service team is well aware that their service has a high number of users who self-declare as having access needs (circa 20%), therefore this work should not be treated as an edge case design
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service met point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the same team is moving with the service as it transitions to SCCL and they will also draw on DDaT experience in this new area
- the CTi team has been coaching permanent civil servants in DDaT ways of working, most particularly demonstrated in the User Research space
- the team accepts that the CTi expertise will be needed long-term, which the panel endorses
- there is proportionate governance and strong relationships between the delivery arms
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure that the “arms” of the service are continuing to focus together on the end-to-end user journey - make sure that the links between the team, the contact centre, and the logistics team remain strong
- ensure there are clear lines of demarcation between the people that are building the service and the people that are using the service, should the service have longevity, to allow for good user research data
- consider what training the team will need in the long term if they were to take on board some roles permanently
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service met point 7 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team follows standard agile ways of working, using scrum ceremonies supported by Jira/Confluence
- the team has iterated following retrospectives and can see the value that this brings, but noted that they need to do these with more rigour and regularity. The panel supports this approach
- the team is all involved in user research and aware of how their product is being used
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure that these ways of working continue as the team moves into SCCL, recognising that the product should be maintained through to retirement
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service met point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team was able to demonstrate how they have iterated their service, taking into account the lessons learned from version 1.0 and the feedback that they had. Whilst the panel would have preferred more usability testing to have been done, it is clear that the team has worked hard to develop the service and improve the user experience
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- should the service have longevity, the team should continue to use data to inform future iterations
- consider the recommendations made under the standards in this report
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service met point 9 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had carried out full penetration testing and mitigated any concerns raised
- a DPIA had been conducted
- only the minimum information required was shared with the clipper logistics platform
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- explore securing the software dependency chain using recognised tooling to scan incorporated third-party code to reduce/eliminate this attack vector
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service did not meet point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has used the four standard KPIs, and was able to demonstrate that they were being measured
- when probed, they were able to talk to the wider metrics used on the service - however, the team didn’t feel ownership for them
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- work on feeling ownership of the products across their service. These metrics might be owned by suppliers or third parties, but are all relevant for ensuring continued success
- do more to understand what good (and bad) looks like for their service, and put plans in place to monitor this as a full performance framework - the four KPIs are not exhaustive and should not be considered as such. When the panel asked about the proportion of support calls, for example, the team wasn’t able to articulate whether this was more or less than they were expecting - this should be clear. Another example would be tracking the number of error messages seen by users, and using this to drive further research and development
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service met point 11 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team chose a well-established e-commerce solution
- the solution makes good use of caching, auto-scaling and load balancing proportional to the expected traffic volumes for the site
- the solution has been built on PHP 8.0 and is fully maintained and supported by the supplier
- the team has full CI/CD capability
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- the team should regularly review the cost of ownership of the platform and testing and development tooling
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- open source languages and components were used in parts of the infrastructure
- the team has open-sourced the custom theme developed (https://github.com/ctidigital/theme-frontend-nhsdesignsystem)
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
- migrate the theme to the department’s open source repository - as opposed to that of the delivery partner
- consider if any other plugins can be published
- assess the use of the open source version of the platform
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service met point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has delivered integration to the existing clipper logistics system
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service met point 14 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had made suitable provisions for disaster recovery, including ensuring all components were provisioned using Ansible, and fully understood and were capable of meeting the department RTO and RPO requirements
- the solution was appropriately configured to deal with traffic and scales accordingly to demand, based on current server CPU loads
- application monitoring, log aggregation and analysis and uptime monitoring were all in place
Published 26 July 2022