From: NHSX
Assessment date: 14 January 2021
Stage: Live
Result: Met
Service provider: DHSC with Skills for Care
Service description
The Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set is an online service managed by Skills for Care on behalf of the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC). The service collects data from care providers and local authorities about their workplace and their workforce. The service is voluntary in terms of usage for all care providers other than local authorities.
The service provides the main source of intelligence to Government, DHSC and local authorities on the adult social care workforce.
The service has data from 19,000 care locations and on 675,000 staff members.
The Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set replaced a legacy service – the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care.
Service users
Users who interact directly with the service:
- care providers regulated by the Care Quality Commission, for example care homes
- care providers not regulated by the Care Quality Commission, for example day care
- local authorities as providers and organisers of care
- Skills for Care Support Team (assisted digital)
- Skills for Care Analysis Team (extractors of data)
There are a wide range of stakeholders who are indirect users of the service in that they rely on the data collected within it. These include:
- the Department of Health and Social Care
- local Authorities
- Health Education England
- Public Health England
- Care Quality Commission
- the Treasury
- other sector stakeholders
This is a voluntary service - inputting data is not mandatory.
Report contents
- Understand users and their needs
- Solve a whole problem for users
- Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
- Make the service simple to use
- Make sure everyone can use the service
- Have a multidisciplinary team
- Use agile ways of working
- Iterate and improve frequently
- Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
- Define what success looks like and publish performance data
- Choose the right tools and technology
- Make new source code open
- Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
- Operate a reliable service
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 have continued to conduct user research with their main user group, organisations who input data, with a cross-section of their user base to ensure they are meeting all needs
- the team have continued to engage with stakeholders who use the data from the system (for example, DHSC) to feed into the design of the system. This is evident in their iteration of adding questions about vaccinations into the question flow
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- continue to explore how users view the service, and how it affects their interaction with it. For example, if organisations are using the service to keep records of their staff training, how does this affect their behaviour and interactions of submitting data? The team may also want to explore whether more support needs to be provided to organisations using it for this dual purpose
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:
- the team thoroughly considered the needs of their data uploaders and the benefit they receive from using the service to incentivise onboarding, intentionally focusing on smaller providers by providing benchmark pages that help them understand the workforce and compare their offering to national averages, plan training, and so on
- the team gave clear examples of how the data has been useful on a national level, for the purpose of estimating the Covid-19 vaccinations numbers, and for analysis of workforce pre-Brexit
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- continue to iterate the service in areas of benchmark pages, bulk upload, and other features that will help them achieve optimal functionality and coverage
- continue to contribute to national bodies and studies exploring workforce challenges across the NHS and Social Care
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
This is a digital-only service with no alternative routes.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has an assisted digital lead embedded to ensure the needs of people who may find using a digital service difficult are considered
- the team works alongside a call-centre to monitor issues that come up for their users and iterate the service based on feedback
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- continue to research with users on all levels of the digital inclusion scale to ensure the service is provided in the form and medium that allows all that would find it beneficial to use it to do so
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:
- standard components of the design system are being used to make it a familiar GOV.UK experience for users
- the team have iterated frequently based on user research
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- continue to conduct rounds of user research, particularly gathering contextual insight, and feed this into the design of the service going forward
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 service is accessible
- the team has focused on ensuring small care homes can use the service
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- explore whether the survey is an opportunity to gather data on users' challenges as they input their data into the service. The team currently measures satisfaction, but they should explore using it beyond this purpose
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:
- although the team relied on contractors for some key roles in user-centred design and technology areas, they had an ongoing budget to resource all key roles and the plans to recruit permanent staff
- recognised and acted upon the opportunity to improve the skills and adopt industry best practices for development and release management via procurement action to change supplier
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- ensure a fully cross functional team remains in place for the foreseeable future as the service continues to be developed
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 works in an agile way, communicating frequently to collaborate, understand the user needs, development tasks, priorities, and resolve issues
- the team conducts regular show and tells for the stakeholders, including DHSC and NHSX
- the service owner and product manager are able to make decisions in a timely manner without disproportionate burden
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 iterates the service every sprint based on user research
- the team was able to present clear examples of things that have been changed recently (for example, vacancy numbers were asked for twice, once overall and once by post, which has now changed to once), and what will be addressed in the next sprint (for example, pre-populated button on one of the registration pages)
- the team is focused on reducing technical debt via specific sprints which they could articulate and against a backlog, for example migrating from AWS to single environment
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 has adopted tools to regularly scan code for vulnerabilities
- the team had considered separation of credentials and secrets for end user authentication from system admin credentials
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- increase frequency of penetration testing, for example per release, as this can highlight ways to improve service design and testing
- explore options across different user groups for use of multi-factor authentication to better protect data
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service met point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had a set of KPIs and success criteria they use to evaluate the service. Unsurprisingly the major criteria is take-up, on which they’re working with the communications team, DHSC, and other organisations
- there is an analyst on the team who uses data from Google Analytics to examine use of the service and help focus user research on an ongoing basis
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- highlight improvements from migrating to cloud services and using new technologies and techniques for agile working and managing releases, for example a case study
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 selected a new supplier with better skills
- the team adopted tools to automate release management and deployment
- the team consolidated system components onto GOV PAAS cloud service to reduce complexity and risk
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider which technical options for multi-factor authentication might be viable
- adding value by using tools to exploit data, to build upon recent examples of analytics for staff training and movements
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:
- the team is using github to share open code
- the team are using new suppliers and tools to improve code quality
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- share their code and insights on running and improving a national data service with other data service providers across the NHS and social care
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 built the new service based on Gov PAAS standards and components, for example the service made use of Gov Notify
- team members are working towards Amazon Web Services (AWS) qualifications and certifications
What the team needs to explore
The team needs to:
- plan for where they need to increase cloud skills and qualifications, for example DevOps and use of containers
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 has demonstrable confidence in how they work to operate the service, add new features and to look for ways to improve processes affecting data quality submitted from care homes and code quality
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider ways to automate testing processes, such as regression testing