This opportunity is closed for applications

The deadline was Tuesday 10 May 2022

NHSX - Department of Health and Social Care

Participant recruitment for regular user research activities

2 Incomplete applications

2 SME, 0 large

5 Completed applications

5 SME, 0 large

• Published: Tuesday 26 April 2022
• Deadline for asking questions: Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Tuesday 10 May 2022 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: The digital transformation team at NHSX needs a specialist service to recruit participants to take part in regular user research activities.
• Location: London
• Research dates: To be confirmed at the start of each project. The contract will run from May 2022 to May 2023.
• Organisation the work is for: NHSX - Department of Health and Social Care
• Budget range: Supplier submit a rate card containing a breakdown of their rates for:; ● Recruitment cost (per participant); ● Service fee; ● Incentive costs ; ● Any additional fees for specific user groups e.g. accessibility ; Budget approved to spend up to 100k total

About the work

About the research

• Description of your participants: Criteria will be specified at the start of each round of research; ; Participants may be from the following groups:; ; Public/patients; ● People accessing health services from different demographics; ● People with specific health conditions; ● People with experience of a particular situation e.g. waiting over 2 weeks to receive test results; ● Children/young people (aged 8-25); ● Vulnerable, hard to reach groups; ● Currently living in England from a spread of locations, age groups, ethnicities, disabilities and genders including trans people; ● Some of the topics we are working on include mental health, outpatients and maternity; ; Health professionals and staff ; ● Clinical staff working in specific health service in the NHS (e.g. mental health service, GP practice, hospital); ● Non-clinical staff supporting delivery of service (e.g. admin team, health care assistants, managers); ; Exclusion criteria; Participants should not:; ● Have taken part in user research in the last 3 months ; ● Work for a central government body or know anyone who may have a stake in the project; ; Consent and data ; ● All participants must give informed consent ahead of the research and be informed of NHSX privacy notice; ● Should be prepared to be recorded (audio/video/photograph) depending on research method
• Assisted digital and accessibility requirements: We will likely need at least 2 participants in each research round of research with:; - Mild access needs (cognitive, motor, visual or hearing); - Severe access needs (cognitive, motor, visual or hearing); - Low digital skills and less confidence online
• Research plan: -Recruiting participants for regular user-research activities. May include (not limited to) in-depth interviews, contextual research, site visits, home visits, diary studies, card sorting, co-design workshops, usability testing, surveys; -Managing the screening process, ensuring participants meet specific criteria. May include (but is not limited to) their experience with a particular health service, demographics, employment status, age, gender or if they have a disability ; -Sharing information sheets, collecting informed consent in the appropriate format using NHSX consent forms; -Booking participants in to allocated research slots; -Sending invitations to the research, reminders, joining instructions; -Sending necessary follow-up emails e.g. support leaflet, feedback survey
• Research location: The research will take place in different locations across England. This may include (but is not limited to) contextual site visits in GP practices, hospitals or health centres. In-depth interviews in participant's homes, co-design workshops and testing ideas in community centres, schools or research labs. ; The team is based in London and Leeds, but will travel to appropriate locations for user research depending on the needs of the research.
• Number of research rounds: To be determined at the start of each project
• Number of participants a round: To be defined at the start of each project.; ; Usually 6 participants per round.
• How often research will happen: We will have regular user research activities taking place across different projects at one time. ; User research should happen maximum once every 2 weeks in each project team. There are currently 3 live projects.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: You should use the standard contract DOS 5 contract unless your organisation needs to include additional terms and conditions.; Read about how the terms and conditions work.; The suppliers have already agreed that:; ● their prices must include all incentives, recruitment, and travel and subsistence costs paid to participants; ● you don’t pay for participants who don’t attend on the day; ● they are responsible for paying participants directly

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:
  • Experience recruiting specialised research participants for government services
  • Follows an ethical, rigorous approach to screening potential participants
  • Access to a range of reliable networks to reach suitable participants
  • Able to process informed consent and incentives for participants
  • Able to mitigate the risks of participants not showing up for user research or not meeting the criteria.
  • Able to recruit participants with mild and severe access needs (motor, cognitive, visual, hearing
  • Able to recruit participants with low digital skills / confidence online
  • Works in an agile way and is flexible in the research methods and contexts they can recruit for
  • Complies with GDPR regulations on storing and processing participant data
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Experience recruiting research participants in a health context
  • Experience recruiting users from vulnerable, 'hard to reach' groups

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a written proposal.

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 3
• Proposal criteria:
  • Their approach to recruiting and screening participants who meet specific criteria
  • Breakdown of recruitment costs, incentives and any admin fees
  • Risks and dependencies with approaches to managing them
• Additional assessment methods:
  • Case study
  • Reference
  • Interview
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  45%

  Availability

  30%

  Price

  25%

Questions asked by suppliers

No questions have been answered yet