Awarded to Reading Room

Start date: Monday 1 February 2021
Value: £100,000
Company size: SME

Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) - Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency

Phase 2 development of the online electronic Research Application Portal (eRAP)

6 Incomplete applications

5 SME, 1 large

5 Completed applications

4 SME, 1 large

• Published: Tuesday 20 October 2020
• Deadline for asking questions: Tuesday 27 October 2020 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Tuesday 3 November 2020 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: CPRD provides anonymised health care data for the purposes of observational and interventional public health research. CPRD is seeking a supplier for the further development of the online research applications portal MVP, and integration with the existing Salesforce CRM.
• Latest start date: Monday 16 November 2020
• Expected contract length: Approximately 12 months
• Location: London
• Organisation the work is for: Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) - Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
• Budget range: The budget for this work is £100,000 split into 2 tranches of £50,000 with the second tranche being approved for release following a satisfactory progress review being made on phase 2 work to date

About the work

• Why the work is being done: CPRD provides anonymised health care data to academic and commercial researchers for the purposes of observational and interventional public health research. CPRD is moving many of its existing processes onto an electronic format, to make them quicker, cheaper, and more efficient. eRAP submission is one such process. CPRD now needs a team to develop the tool from the current DRUPAL MVP, ensuring that an easy to use product is produced which passes all GDS requirements and agency spend control procedures. The work will comprise mainly of work in the current backlog for development
• Problem to be solved: The eRAP online tool needs to be developed out of the current MVP with a focus on user led iteration. Any development of the tool must follow the GDS principles.
• Who the users are and what they need to do: As a user of the tool I will be an epidemiologist or researcher who will be applying to CPRD to use the CPRD database for health-related research purposes. The tool must allow me to log onto the system, write my application and make any amendments necessary to it both before and after submission. As a reviewer I must be able to log onto the system, review and comment on applications that have been assigned to me for review. The tool must be easy to use with quick and simple access to users and integrate with the CPRD CRM system - SalesForce. Internal users will be administrative staff, internal and external submission reviewers and operations staff.
• Early market engagement: "CPRD has already conducted a discovery for phase 2 on the needs and requirements of the users for the tool. This included engagement of both internal and external users of the proposed tool.; ; Most research applications come from Academia (60%) followed by Pharma companies (30%) Other (10%)"
• Any work that’s already been done: The discovery phase of this project has been completed by CPRD. eRAP is currently in the Public Beta phase as an MVP. Phase 2 will bring the product out of MVP and Beta. A list of requirements has been collated from the backlog of phase 1 development work.
• Existing team: "The existing CPRD project team consists of:; 1x Head of Business Operations (Product Owner); 1x Research Applications Manager (Deputy); 1x Research Applications Officer; 1x CPRD Infrastructure Manager; 1x CPRD Senior Researcher; 1x CPRD SalesForce Developer"
• Current phase: Live

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: CPRD is based in Canary Wharf, London but proposals of work conducted remotely at a different location would be expected with regular meetings to take place in Canary Wharf, supplier premises or virtually
• Working arrangements: Working in an agile manner - 2 weekly sprints including reviews, stand ups. Meetings to be held either face to face or virtually. Travel expenses will not be paid.
• Security clearance: Not Applicable. A standard MHRA NDA would be expected.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: This contract would be deemed outside the intermediaries legislation (IR35).

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:
  • Have proven experience building easy-to-use web-based applications.
  • Have proven experience building cloud based services.
  • Have proven experience conducting and documenting user research, and iterating project work accordingly (test driven development).
  • Have proven experience delivering projects using the agile project management methodology.
  • Demonstrate understanding and ability to deliver digital services/products to the Government Digital Service standards.
  • Demonstrate a successful approach to completion of required GDS Service Assessment, Security Health Check, Penetration Testing, Service Readiness, and release reviews as part of quality and acceptance tests.
  • Development experience solely using DRUPAL.
  • Have experience of developing web based application portal solutions
  • Have availability of resources to be able to start as soon as possible
  • Have experience working with a healthcare-related institution developing cloud based solutions.
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Have previous successful experience delivering digital services within Government.
  • Have proven track record of building services with robust disaster recovery plans in place
  • Have proven track record of building services with automated testing procedures.
  • Have a track record of successfully delivering IT projects within public sector organisations
  • Have experience of Application Forms (example: https://www.cprd.com/sites/default/files/ISAC%20Protocol%20Application%20Form%202018_0.docx )
  • Demonstrate knowledge of working with 3rd parties to develop standard interfaces and data exchange portals
  • Have experience of successfully transitioning projects into a live service environment within a government department within the last 12 months.
  • Have experience of developing web based application portal solutions for UK Government.
  • Experience of building easy-to-use-web-based responsive design and progressive enhancement to delivering a good experience on mobile devices
  • Knowledge of application and review portals for the use of research applications".

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a written proposal.

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 3
• Proposal criteria:
  • Technical solution.
  • Approach and methodology.
  • How the Approach or solution meets user needs.
  • How the Approach or solution meets CPRD policies and goals.
  • Estimated timeframes for the work.
  • Identification of risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them.
  • Team structure.
  • Value for money.
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Have experience working with public sector organisations.
  • Work collaboratively with key contacts in CPRD.
  • Demostrate transparency in decision-making.
  • Demostrate strong pro-active approach to incident and problem management.
  • •Demostrate experience of working in an Agile environment
  • Demostrate commitment in working together to solve problems
• Payment approach: Capped time and materials
• Additional assessment methods:
  • Case study
  • Work history
  • Presentation
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  40%

  Cultural fit

  20%

  Price

  40%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. One of the essential piece of evidence is listed as "Development experience solely using DRUPAL.", please explain why this is an essential requirement for this opportunity?: eRAP is programmed in DRUPAL and we would expect that to be the case for phase 2. eRAP enables a complicated process to be automated and we would expect the successful bidder to have significant DRUPAL experience. If they have other experience it is largely irrelevant to this project though would not preclude them from the process.
• 2. The reference site below is showing an "Error 404". Can you please share the right URL? Thanks.https://www.cprd.com/sites/default/files/ISAC%20Protocol%20Application%20Form%202018_0.docx: The link is; ; https://www.cprd.com/sites/default/files/For reference ISAC protocol application form_0.pdf
• 3. The reference site below is showing an "Error 404". Can you please share the right URL? Thanks.https://www.cprd.com/sites/default/files/ISAC%20Protocol%20Application%20Form%202018_0.docx: https://www.cprd.com/sites/default/files/For%20reference%20ISAC%20protocol%20application%20form_0.pdf