From: DHSC
Assessment date: 20/03/2025
Stage: Beta assessment
Result: Green
Service provider: NHS England
Service description
The NHS Digital Weight Management Programme provides accessible, flexible, and digital behavioural weight management support for adults with obesity and long-term conditions. Commissioned by NHSE, it offers a 12-week structured programme via smartphone, tablet, or computer, removing the need for in-person attendance. The Referral Hub streamlines patient access through Primary Care: General Practice, Community Pharmacy and Community Care Healthcare professionals; Secondary Care: Elective Care Waiting lists, and Self Directed: NHS staff self-referrals, enabling a personalised service selection for all. Designed to support NHS service commitments, the programme empowers users to develop healthier habits and achieve sustainable weight loss through digital, evidence-based interventions delivered by NHSE commissioned Weight Management Service Provide
Service users
This service is for four types of users:
- External: GP / Primary Care Healthcare professionals – those referring patients into the Hub via the e-RS
- External: Community Pharmacy / Community Care Healthcare professionals – those referring patients into the Hub via the on-line web-based referral forms.
- External: NHS Trusts/ Secondary Care Elective Care waiting list Healthcare professionals those referring patients into the Hub via the on-line web-based referral forms.
- Patients (adults) and carers.
- Internal:
- Midlands and Lancashire NHS Commissioning Support Unit Referral Management Centre (RMC) staff and business intelligence analysts,
2. NHS England Analysts
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 was rated green for point 1 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- revisit the documented user needs to ensure they represent people’s high-level reasons for engaging with the service. For example, ‘I need my patients to lose weight to increase the chances of their surgery’s success. Those presented were functional like ‘I need to be able to save progress’
- document and make visible the process and outcomes for ensuring the organisations completing research are compliant with all required standards like consent, data storage, sampling, reducing bias for example
- continue to secure a dedicated user researcher for the service. This would improve the responsiveness with which the team can gather insights and act on them
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision The service was rated green for point 2 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- continue to test support channels and offline parts of the service so they remain joined up
- continue to influence partners, stakeholders and other departments with what you find out
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- continue to apply findings from user research for the digital journey to offline channels, like the chatbot script, patient information and training resources
- maintain assessing third party apps and hold them accountable if they do not meet agreed standards
- continue to share data with other departments and GPs, and agree a process for keeping them up to date with changes
- carry on looking for ways to improve the service, for example, by changing the 2factor authentication code to make it more accessible
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision The service was rated green for point 4 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- continue sharing new design patterns and research with the wider design community and design system team
- keep creating a content style guide for the service and share with other services dealing with weight management
- maintain your work on inclusive language and update new content and screens
- carry on reusing existing infrastructure and design
- continue minimising the number of times users provide the same information to NHS services (while respecting their privacy)
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision The service was rated green for point 5 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- continue to meet accessibility standards and remember to update the accessibility statement if things change
- launch the information video in 8 languages and share with other teams what you have learned and how you did it
- continue to iterate the design based on user research with disabled users
- maintain use inclusive language across the whole service, including text messages, the chatbot script and any training materials
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision The service was rated green for point 6 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- explore the possibility of bringing in user research and content design skills into the core team
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision The service was rated green for point 7 of the Standard.
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision The service was rated green for point 8 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- seek ways to shorten feedback loops between user research findings and product development through either an in-team user researcher or through different timelines with partners
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision The service was rated green for point 9 of the Standard.
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision The service was rated green for point 10 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service
- consider how to make performance data findable and accessible for a non-specialist audience. Consider publishing KPI metrics via the NHS digital service catalogue.
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service was rated green for point 11 of the Standard.
12. Make new source code open
Decision The service was rated green for point 12 of the Standard.
Open-source repositories:
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision The service was rated green for point 13 of the Standard.
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision The service was rated green for point 14 of the Standard.
Leave a comment