This opportunity is closed for applications

The deadline was Wednesday 23 December 2020

NHS Digital

Prj_4744 - Product Development and Data Services Directorates Service Design

16 Incomplete applications

11 SME, 5 large

20 Completed applications

13 SME, 7 large

• Published: Wednesday 9 December 2020
• Deadline for asking questions: Wednesday 16 December 2020 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Wednesday 23 December 2020 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: The NHS Digital Product Development Directorate and the Data Services Directorate are seeking a service design and user research supplier to work with us in a strategic capacity. This will complement our internal capability and scale user-centred design approaches through the delivery of products and services.
• Latest start date: Monday 1 March 2021
• Expected contract length: 2 Years
• Location: Yorkshire and the Humber
• Organisation the work is for: NHS Digital

About the work

• Why the work is being done: The Product Development Directorate and Digital Services Directorate in NHS Digital designs, builds and delivers new products and services that result in better care and improved health outcomes for people in England. ; ; To be able to achieve positive health outcomes, we are committed to being a service design and user research led organisation. ; ; We are seeking a supplier who can provide the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to help meet demand for user-centred service design and user research capability on a range of public facing services from discovery to live. ; ; NHS Digital intends to award two separate Call-off Contracts to two suppliers for two years and issue Statement's of Work (SOWs) to deliver the above programme of work.
• Problem to be solved: Growing demand for user-centred design capability means we need experts in service design and user research to increase our capacity and support efforts to deliver user-centred services that meet NHS service standard requirements. ; ; Some of the challenges we are currently facing are, for example: ; ; Creating a service catalogue for the directorate to shift the work around end-to-end services with success metrics that ladder up to health outcomes. ; ; Uncovering the user needs for the future of cancer screening services and designing viable services to meet them. ; ; Map NHS Digital’s services for COVID-19 to be able to make recommendations and prioritisation calls.; ; Developing capability to integrate data sets and offer the longitudinal, patient-centred care records.; ; Optimising and scaling our digitrials service for research community.
• Who the users are and what they need to do: The users of our products and services consists of: ; ; Data specialists; ; General public and patients ; ; Front line staff ; ; Tech suppliers ; ; Local digital NHS leaders ; ; Researchers ; ; National health and care partners
• Existing team: Existing multidisciplinary teams. The team structure and roles vary.
• Current phase: Not applicable

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: Due to the ongoing pandemic we expect the work to be carried out remotely until we can safely return to office working. A mix of office locations Leeds/London and remote work is expected. ; ; User research nationwide.
• Working arrangements: A flexible approach is required to meet the needs of each individual project and programme on a SOW basis. ; ; Due to the ongoing pandemic, we expect this work to take place remotely, until we can safely return to the office. After that a mix of office-based (Leeds, London) and remote work is expected. ; ; User research will also take place remotely by default. If and when face to face research is deemed safe it can be expected to take place around England as project requirements demand to ensure robust representation of users.
• Security clearance: BPSS will be required as a minimum for all supplier staff. Any members of the supplier team who may have access to patient identifiable data or other sensitive personal information may require Security Clearance. We would expect this would include any user researchers, data analysts, service designers and project managers.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: Draft Order Form/Call-off Terms and Conditions and the initial Statement's of Work (SOWs) and Instructions to Bidders Document are available at the following link:; https://nhsdigital.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.html; ; Bravo reference: pre_234 - Product Development and Data Services Directorates Service Design.; ; To view the above you must be registered on NHS Digital's e-tendering portal. Suppliers not registered please register using the link above.

Skills and experience

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

• Essential skills and experience:
  • Demonstratable experience of designing end-to-end services that cut across organisational silos, and include user-facing touchpoints, data flows, and back-end systems
  • Demonstratable experience of designing and prototyping digital services that meet NHS and/or GDS service standard
  • Demonstratable experience of using service design to influence long-term organisation strategy towards being service design led
  • Demonstratable experience of undertaking methodically robust and ethically compliant user research. Methods should include ethnography, contextual observation, semi-structured depth interviews, usability testing, surveys and quantitative data analysis.
  • Demonstratable experience of identifying and undertaking research with seldom heard voices and underrepresented groups. This means identifying any disproportionately affected populations and ensuring they are overrepresented in research.
  • Demonstrable experience of successfully using insights from user research to make recommendations that change the approach of senior/board-level decision makers
  • Demonstratable experience of designing products and services that are inclusive and meet accessibility requirements.
  • Demonstratable experience of mapping outcomes to services and demonstrating how you can measure the success of products against these outcomes.
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Demonstratable experience of building trusted relationships with team members and senior stakeholders remotely and face-to-face.
  • Understanding of and experience with the specific challenges that health and social care setting brings to user research and service design
  • Demonstrable understanding of when and how to use different types of and fidelity of artefacts and prototypes to validate concepts and communicate and get buy-in from a range of stakeholders
  • Demonstrable experience using lean, lightweight and robust methods to provide actionable user insights to fast-paced, agile delivery teams

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a written proposal.

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 5
• Proposal criteria:
  • Delivery approach and capability
  • Resourcing approach and capability
  • Delivering to Government Digital Service (GDS) Service Standard
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Demonstrate how you have established trusted advisory relationships with senior leaders in large, complex organisations
  • Outline your style and approach to working with a multidisciplinary in-house team, with examples of how you have established productive, collaborative relationships on previous projects
• Payment approach: Capped time and materials
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  55%

  Cultural fit

  5%

  Price

  40%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Can you please outline the expected total budget for this opportunity: As this is a call off contract there is no commitment but we expect the value to be up to a maximum of £4m and up to a 2 year contract duration.
• 2. Pricing will be given the relatively high weighting of 40% in your evaluation. Please can you provide guidance on your expectations for day rates. e.g. an average blended rate, range or maximum rate and budget/ballpark number for likely overall spend during the term: 40% is NHS Digital policy for pricing weighting, we are not asking for pricing to be submitted at stage 1 and more information will be provided with those successfully providers who are invited to the stage 2 of this process.
• 3. Can you please outline the expected total budget for this opportunity: We expect the call off value to be £4m (no commitment)
• 4. Given the start date of the opportunity, why are NHS Digital procuring this now, rather than waiting until the Digital Capability for Health framework goes live?: The new framework doesn't go live until the New Year, and there is already a pipeline identified. We have immediate requirement for these services, and need to have teams in place this financial year
• 5. Please can you describe your rationale for running this procurement in addition to DCH..?: The new framework doesn't go live until the New Year, and there is already a pipeline identified. We have immediate requirement for these services, and need to have teams in place this financial year
• 6. The recent Digital Capability for Health (DCH) framework requirement includes roles for Service Designers and User Researchers.Please can you describe your rationale for running this procurement in addition to DCH: The new framework doesn't go live until the New Year, and there is already a pipeline identified. We have immediate requirement for these services, and need to have teams in place this financial year
• 7. Please confirm whether the scores achieved by suppliers will be provided to unsuccessful bidders after stage 1.: We can confirm that we will provide this information
• 8. The Draft TOCs and SOWs mentioned in the notice are not yet available on Bravo; can you please clarify when these will be made available?: The SOWs and draft T&Cs are available via Bravo
• 9. With regards to Question 4, please could you clarify whether we need one example which demonstrates where we have used all methods outlined (ethnography, contextual observation, semi-structured depth interviews, usability testing, surveys and quantitative data analysis). Or, can we use multiple examples/ select the most relevant methods?: We expect a high level overview of your capabaility in these areas at stage one. Please use the most relevant example.