Awarded to Triad Group Plc

Start date: Thursday 7 June 2018
Value: £67,200
Company size: SME

Trust Development Authority acting under the operational name of NHS Improvement

Senior Business Analyst to support development of the NHS National PLICS Portal (Acute)

3 Incomplete applications

3 SME, 0 large

15 Completed applications

13 SME, 2 large

• Published: Wednesday 18 April 2018
• Deadline for asking questions: Wednesday 25 April 2018 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Wednesday 2 May 2018 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Specialist role: Business analyst
• Summary of the work: Working with internal and external stakeholders, define and document requirements for analytic products to understand cost drivers and identify productivity savings within the Acute, Mental Health and Ambulance sectors.; ; Deliverables:; ; Product Development Strategy.; Creation of a medium/long term product roadmap.; Prioritised product backlog.; Iterative wireframes.; ; Interviews (London,SE1): between 14-16 May
• Latest start date: Wednesday 23 May 2018
• Expected contract length: Four months with the option for NHS Improvement to extend for an additional limited duration.
• Location: London
• Organisation the work is for: Trust Development Authority acting under the operational name of NHS Improvement
• Maximum day rate: Up to £725 inclusive of any agency fees, travel to/from base location & exclusive of VAT. ; ; Please note this role has been assessed as being within IR35. This position will not be reconsidered.; ; The successful supplier shall be responsible for paying the worker and must:; ; - calculate a deemed direct payment to account for employment taxes associated with the contract.; ; - deduct those taxes from any payment made to the contractor.; ; - report the taxes deducted to HMRC through Real Time Information (RTI). ; ; - pay the relevant employers' NICs.

About the work

• Early market engagement: The Phase one of the PLICS portal (acute sector) went live in 2017. In summary its aims & objectives are:; ; Improving the care provided to patients is predicated on the ability to measure the service provided against best practice. We need a common denominator, a set of standards and a methodology by which all providers can measure their services. Costing is the financial tool to deliver this. By having sector wide standards for apportioning costs and the information capacity to bring these together, we can establish best practice and benchmarks to directly compare activity and associated costs of providers. This provides the intelligence to challenge performance through comparison, to establish variances in the delivery of service.; ; To deliver the scale of transformation required NHS Improvement has set up a Costing Transformation Programme, to enable providers to improve performance, benchmark their costs, and improve currencies and tariff design. A key deliverable is a central repository for PLICS data, to provide the sector with business intelligence needed to drive change.; ; So far data has been collected from over 60 organisations to help providers understand cost drivers through the information provided (e.g. cost variation reports).; ; Further information on the national PLICS Portal:; https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/tools-for-using-costing-data/
• Who the specialist will work with: The business objective and scope will be set by Cost Collection Lead. Day-to-day direction of the deliverables set will be via the Cost Collection Manager. ; ; To facilitate iterative development of analytic products, the BA will work with the product manager, developers, Information Governance and IT Operations & Support within the Technology and Data Directorate, to ensure their involvement in key decisions and activities impacting their areas of responsibility.; ; And;; ; Costing Practitioners, Service Managers, Finance Directors and Clinicians within NHS organisations (not an exhaustive list), in conjunction with the Cost Collection Lead / Manager elicit requirements for the analytic product(s) required.
• What the specialist will work on: NHS Improvement requires external support form an experienced Business Analyst to work in partnership with the Cost Collection & Analysis team and NHS healthcare providers to understand, define and playback requirements to shape reporting scope, metrics and potential use cases for the Costing Transformation Programme's (CTP)analytical/reporting applications suite.; ; Key deliverables:; ; Development of a Product Development Strategy (content).; ; Creation of a medium/long term product roadmap.; ; Prioritised product backlog to enable development of an alpha solution for Mental Health and Ambulance trusts and enhancement of the acute application.; ; Develop iterative wireframes to facilitate development of the updated solution.; ; PLICS further information:; https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/tools-for-using-costing-data/

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: You will be based at NHS Improvement's London office (133-135 Waterloo Road, London, SE1 8UG) with travel across England to visit NHS run providers of NHS funded care (i.e. Acute, Mental Health, Ambulance and Community trusts) required as necessary.
• Working arrangements: The Business Analyst will work to the direction of the Cost Collection & Analysis Manager. ; ; The engagement will take place at our London office and at NHS provider sites in England.; ; This role will involve some UK travel; travel expenses will be paid in line with our internal policy.; ; Working from home may be possible on occasion, but only by exception.
• Security clearance: Security clearance is not required.; ; Suppliers must verify proposed candidate's right to work in the UK and any qualifications and accreditations stated and/or necessary for delivery of the requirement, before the candidate is submitted.

Additional information

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 demonstrable experience of the BA role within agile frameworks. (20 points)
  • have a minimum of 5 years’ experience of working and completing projects (include an example) within an agile development environment. (10 points)
  • have demonstrable experience of developing a Product Development Strategy and associated Product Roadmap. (10 points)
  • have demonstrable expertise in creating a Prioritised Product Backlog to enable agile development. (20 points)
  • have a minimum of 5 years’ experience of stakeholder relationship management and an ability to influence challenging stakeholders and propose pragmatic ways forward. (10 points)
  • have strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain new techniques, concepts and analyses to non-technical stakeholders, to influence their decisions. (15 points)
  • have excellent facilitation skills to run effective workshops and document findings. (15 points)
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • demonstrate experience of NHS or other health related data sets
  • demonstrate experience of data visualisation tools and techniques

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many specialists to evaluate: 4
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers to deliver project outcomes.
  • be transparent and collaborative when making decisions and can mediate opposing opinions.
  • have a no-blame approach and encourage people to learn from their mistakes.
  • share knowledge and experience with other team members.
• Assessment methods:
  • Work history
  • Reference
  • Interview
  • Scenario or test
  • Presentation
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  70%

  Cultural fit

  10%

  Price

  20%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Please publish details of the briefing meeting.: To register for the Supplier's briefing meeting (16:00 on Wednesday 25 April), please log in to view and follow the registration instructions provided. Please note there will be one briefing meeting, covering the three BA opportunities (6721, 6723 & 6724).
• 2. Are you looking for candidates/resources that have work histories in the NHS or departments which process large data sets?: Experience with NHS or very large data sets is desirable but is not essential. We are not seeking candidates/resources who have previously worked in a specific department or part of the NHS.
• 3. Would you accept costing practitioners who don’t have formal agile experience?: We need credible candidates/resources to deliver the outcomes required in a rapid and iterative way of working. It is not essential that they have held a business analyst job title for a certain number of years.; ; It is key that the candidates/resources Suppliers put forward can confidently address the seven “Essential skills and experience” listed as the initial shortlist (to interview) evaluation will be based on this. Additionally we will validate the shortlist evaluation against information contained in work histories and at interview.
• 4. How important are formal qualifications (e.g. in agile).: Holding formal agile or related qualifications is not essential and you should still submit strong senior BA’s where formal qualifications are not held. Where a Supplier or their candidate/resource states they have formal qualification(s), it will be the Suppliers’ responsibility to validate and hold copies of these qualifications, as we may ask for these to be evidenced before we award a contract.
• 5. Will you be keeping the candidates within the opportunity they applied for (e.g. Acute)?: Yes. The candidate/resource profile for each opportunity is the same and If you had two candidates both with an Acute background, it does not mean either could not be submitted to the Mental Health opportunity. Equally if you only have one candidate you can submit them three times, although we would only shortlist that candidate once (i.e. the same candidate/resource can only be interviewed once across the three Senior BA roles available). Our preference is for each Supplier to submit three highly credible senior BA candidates/resources.
• 6. Are you looking for the ability for the candidate/resource substitution (swap-out), as part of the delivery?: The ability to swap-out is not a requirement. ; ; The contract awarded to the successful Supplier will identify the candidate/resource as “Key Staff” – please see the call-off contract (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-2-call-off-contract). ; ; Further, we have assessed the role as within IR35, this position will not be reconsidered.; ; The successful Supplier shall be responsible for paying the worker and must:; ; - calculate a deemed direct payment to account for employment taxes associated with the contract.; ; - deduct those taxes from any payment made to the contractor.; ; - report the taxes deducted to HMRC through RTI. ; ; - pay the relevant employers' NICs.
• 7. Do you want to receive CV’s directly?: No. An individual candidate/resource must be put forward in response to the published portal opportunities. Where we consider a Supplier has not put forward an identifiable candidate in its initial response to the essential skills and experience (e.g. it is referencing its ability to provide candidates generally), we may reject that response.; ; Where we cannot identify a suitable candidate at interview, we may ask the shortlisted Suppliers to submit another credible candidate (supported by a relevant work history) for consideration at a further round of interviews. This will only be made available to those Suppliers shortlisted for the given opportunity.
• 8. Would you consider video interviews?: No. Interviews must be face to face at our London office (SE1). Should your candidate/resource be shortlisted you will be asked to provide a preference list from the interview slots available. We will seek to align this as close to stated preferences as is possible, however we cannot guarantee a specific slot.
• 9. How long will the interviews take?: Interviews will take up to 60 minutes. Your candidate/resource must arrive 15 minutes before the assigned slot to enable processing at reception.
• 10. Do you have business analysts in your organisation?: Yes, we have permanent and contract BA’s currently but these are not currently available to work on this project.
• 11. How much travel is required?: The successful candidate/resource will be based in our London office (SE1) for the majority of the engagement. Travel is required across England and travel and overnight expenses, in line with our internal policies, will be reimbursed as part of the time sheet and invoice process. We reserve the right to book and pay for travel and hotels via our appointed travel management company.
• 12. Can the interviews happen sooner than 14-16 May?: No as we need to allow sufficient time to assess the responses before shortlisting and inviting candidates/resources to interview.
• 13. How much of the evaluation will be based on “demonstrate experience of NHS or other health related data sets”?: As a “Nice-to-have skill/experience”, this will only be factored in to shortlisted decision making where we have more than four candidates (the per opportunity stated maximum amount we will shortlist) who “meet” all of the seven “Essential skills and experience” listed. In this event we will down select to four based on the two “Nice-to-have skills and experience” listed. In the event we still have more than four Suppliers (per opportunity) we will rank them based on how well they have met the “Essential skills and experience” listed (i.e. number of “exceeds” rather than "met" scored).
• 14. What happens if the same candidate is submitted by two Suppliers?: Where a "duplicate" candidate is shortlisted to interview, both Suppliers’ will be asked to evidence candidate representation. Where both can do this, we will decide which Supplier will be able to take that candidate forward (e.g. by looking at the date of the candidate representation and the clarity presented – please note our decision in this circumstance shall be final). The Supplier who cannot take the candidate/resource forward will be given the opportunity to put forward another credible candidate, provided they can do so before the scheduled interview date and where that candidate/resource is supported by a relevant work history.