NHS Digital Transformation Blog
A space to share insights and experiences for everybody working to improve the NHS and social care system’s use of data and digital technology.
How to stay one step ahead of a cyber attack
Ryan Lee explains how our Threat Operations team use a unique network of intelligence and techniques to detect advanced cyber threats before they can cause harm – and what everyone working in the NHS should do to help.
Cyber Security Principal, Threat Operations, NHS England
Accessibility is a choice
Claire Dellar talks about her experience of using assistive technology and explains how other people’s choices not to prioritise accessibility affect her.
Lead Product Manager,
How we’re transforming our digital service catalogue
Thasmim Ali describes the changes we’ve made to our digital service catalogue to make it easier for our stakeholders to find out and understand what national digital services are available for NHS staff and organisations to use.
Product Owner,
New choices for GP IT
As we prepare to bring new products and suppliers into the GP IT market, Dan Wintercross discusses the Tech Innovation Framework.
Associate Director, Digital Services for Integrated Care,
Multi-factor authentication: a silver cyber bullet?
Clinical lead Chris Day says full implementation of multi-factor authentication is critical to local organisations’ cyber security.
Clinical Lead, NHS England
The invisible ecosystem that protects us
Alex Toft, Head of Technical Intervention in our Technology Live Services directorate, explains how the renewal of the NHS's public key infrastructure (PKI) over the coming months will lay the foundations for trusted identities and secure communications for the next generation.
Head of Technical Intervention, NHS England
How we created a roadmap for the NHS website
James Higgott, Lead Product Manager for the NHS website, talks about how his team is using a comprehensive roadmap to help them focus on outcomes, not outputs.
Lead Product Manager, NHS Digital
The NHS App after the pandemic
Susie Day, Programme Director for the NHS App, looks at what’s changed since the app’s launch in January 2019 and how its services are evolving post-COVID.
Programme Director,
What's so great about the new National Care Records Service?
Locum pharmacist Faraaz Hussain describes his experience of using the new National Care Records Service.
Clinical Lead and Locum Pharmacist,
An easy way to register with a GP surgery
Dr Shanker Vijay, GP and Digital First Lead for London, explains why he is championing the national ‘Register with a GP surgery’ service and talks about improvements to the service.
Digital First Lead for London,
Shaping the future of technology in general practice
Dan Wintercross explains the benefits of getting involved with the early adopter programme, which is giving GP practices the opportunity to shape the future of digital, data and technology in primary care.
Associate Director, Digital Services for Integrated Care,
How to jump into the cloud
Neil Gibbs, Cloud Engagement Lead at NHS Digital, says we need more NHS organisations to migrate to the cloud and explains what help is available.
Cloud Engagement Lead, NHS Digital
Expanding online consultations in the NHS App
Dan Collins, Senior Product Manager for the NHS App, explains why we want to open up the app to more suppliers offering online consultation services and welcomes the latest service to integrate.
Senior Product Manager,
How to talk to busy teams about cyber security
Manpreet Pujara, Clinical Director for Patient Safety and Freedom to Speak up Guardian, says everyone working in health and care has a role in protecting the NHS from cyber attacks, and that clear, supportive messaging will help people do their bit.
Clinical Director for Patient Safety and Freedom to Speak up Guardian,
Building diversity from the ground up
Cathy O’Keeffe, Associate Director of Cyber Delivery, says improving the diversity of our teams is crucial to the successful delivery of cyber security across the health and care system.
Associate Director of Cyber Delivery,
COVID-19 digital readers: Can you see the line?
Rob Banathy, Senior Product Manager, explains how his team developed the lateral flow device (LFD) digital reader service that can detect nearly twice the number of positive COVID-19 cases during early infection compared to the human eye.
Senior Product Manager,
What does creating a ‘digital front door’ mean?
Professor Jonathan Benger, Digital Citizen Portfolio Lead at NHS England, introduces our National Digital Channels Platform and Integration Strategy which aims to make our digital channels more open, collaborative and efficient across the health and care system.
Digital Citizen Portfolio Lead,
Cyber security is a patient safety issue
Cyber security is more than ‘just an IT issue’; it’s ultimately about keeping patients safe. Chris Day discusses his role in embedding clinical safety deeper into our cyber security strategies.
Clinical Lead, NHS England
NHS Pathways: Designing with clinical equity
Siama Latif, Senior Clinical Informatician at NHS Digital, looks at the process behind how we triage COVID Oximetry @home patients using NHS 111 or 999 services.
Senior Clinical Informatician,
What does it mean to be a ‘mature’ team?
Lauren Latham, Head of Product for our screening programmes, explains a new approach to supporting product development teams at NHS Digital.
Head of Product,
Keeping accessibility at the heart of our developer hub
Matthew Firth, Business Analyst in our API Management team, explains how we’ve worked with users to ensure our resources for developers don’t exclude people with accessibility needs.
Business Analyst,
Making building APIs easier
Daniela Simonato, business analyst in our API Management team, says collaboration and flexibility are critical to making APIs (application programming interfaces) easier to build, and therefore serving users’ and producers’ needs.
Business Analyst,
Why diversity is not a 'nice to have' in cyber
Vicky Axon, NHS Digital's Regional Security Lead, says monocultures breed security weaknesses and we are still struggling to get the variety of backgrounds we need in NHS cyber teams.
Regional Security Lead,
NHS App messaging - a better way to talk to patients
Harry Etherington, Product Delivery Officer, explains how we’re opening up the use of NHS App messaging to more health and care services, to better satisfy the growing appetite of users to receive their communications digitally.
Product Delivery Officer,
The importance of good cyber security during a pandemic
Toby Griffiths, Head of Innovation and Delivery for NHS Digital's Data Security Centre, discusses how we have tackled cyber security issues and how we are addressing 'security debt' brought about by the pandemic.
Head of Innovation and Delivery,
Making health tech safe for patients
On World Patient Safety Day, Dr Mona Johnson, Deputy Clinical Director of Patient Safety at NHS Digital and a practicing GP, explains how NHS Digital systems and services keep people safe.
Deputy Clinical Director of Patient Safety,
What's behind a simple letter?
David Ibbotson, Operations Director for the Vaccine Programme at NHS South, Central and West (SCW), a key partner in the NHS-wide vaccination programme, shares what he has learnt about what is required to deliver a ‘simple’ letter inviting someone for a jab.
Operations Director for the Vaccine Programme, NHS South, Central and West,
Designing out the need for training in a staff-facing app
Jason Hodge, Lead Service Designer for the national booking service, looks at how they had to quickly design an app that COVID-19 vaccination site staff could easily and effectively use to check in the hundreds of people arriving daily to get their jab.
Lead Service Designer,
The rise of the clinical informatician
Dr Raj Kumar, our Chief Clinician for Informatics, explains his role at NHS Digital and how it’s made him a better doctor, how clinical informatics has developed in the NHS, and gives advice to those looking to enter the field.
Chief Clinician for Informatics,
From the frontline: Seeing the patient in the data
Victoria Wray is the Advanced Analytics Clinical lead at Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust. She discusses how they developed a data visualisation tool that helped clinicians to provide more effective treatments for their patients suffering from mental health issues.
Advanced Analytics Clinical Lead, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust,
Behind the scenes at COVID-19 vaccination centres
The national booking service is helping millions of people schedule their life-saving COVID-19 vaccinations. James Higgott, Lead Product Manager, gives an insider’s view on how we created the staff-facing products that make up this service and solved some teething problems along the way.
Lead Product Manager, NHS Digital
From the frontline: What do the people want?
Connected Nottinghamshire won Health Tech Team of the Year at the HTN Awards 2020. Alexis Farrow, Head of Strategy and Transformation for the programme, explains how her team set out to understand what digital solution would best support the wide spectrum of health and care needs for the people in Nottinghamshire. She found that solution in the NHS App.
Head of Strategy and Transformation at Connected Nottinghamshire,
Demystifying the integration process for the NHS App
James Reith, Content Designer for the NHS App, explains how the NHS App integration team have improved their integration process to make it easier for partner services to innovate.
Content Designer,
NHS login: Coping with the large-scale adoption of digital health services
Richard McStay, Lead Delivery Manager, explains how the NHS login team is making it easier for more people to register.
Lead Delivery Manager,
Cyber with Rosie
Rosie Underwood, Cyber Security Consultant in NHS Digital’s Data Security Centre, talks about her role in strengthening the security of organisations across the NHS in support of Cyber Security Awareness month.
Cyber Security Consultant,
How to cut your risks of a human-operated ransomware attack
Many ransomware attacks are not fully automated but involve individuals gaining access, moving around your system and then deploying malware. Simon Dyson, NHS Digital’s Cyber Security Operations Centre lead, discusses how organisations can make it hard for them.
Cyber Security Operations Centre Lead,
Effective cyber security has never mattered so much
John Noble, the non-executive director who leads on information and cyber security for the NHS Digital Board, looks at the cyber threat facing the NHS as it deals with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Non-Executive Director,
Building great digital services during a crisis
Lucy Ha, Product and Delivery Management Graduate, explains how the NHS digital service manual is helping organisations quickly build accessible, consistent digital products and services needed to respond to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Product and Delivery Management Graduate,
How we’re supporting COVID-19 convalescent plasma trials
NHS Blood and Transplant is investigating the effectiveness of treating coronavirus patients with plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19. Heather Pinches, Head of the Clinical Trials Service at NHS Digital, explains how we’re helping with this effort.
Head of the Clinical Trials Service,
Teams helping bridge the gap
Social distancing has radically changed the way we can work together during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. Nikki Jeffery, Urology Fellow at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, describes how using collaboration software has helped link people up.
Urology Fellow, University College London Hospitals,
Birth in a time of solitude
Specialist midwife for IT Lorri Allport, looks at how technology has helped support women through pregnancy, birth and post-natal care in rural Lincolnshire during the pandemic.
Specialist Midwife for IT,
How should service design react to COVID-19?
Service designers have had to react quickly to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic, but despite the pressure it's a time to still get the basics right according to Dean Vipond, Lead Designer on the NHS website.
Lead Designer on the NHS website,
How we are assessing COVID-19 apps
The NHS and innovators are working to develop new mobile products and digital technologies that can help in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Creating the COVID-19 text service for vulnerable people
A small group from NHSX, NHS Digital, NHS Business Services Authority and the Behavioural Insights Team has developed a text service for those most threatened by COVID-19.
Lead Technical Architect, NHSX,
Data saves lives
Tom Foley, Senior Clinical Lead for Data at NHS Digital, writes about the power of data in health and social care.
Senior Clinical Lead for Data,
Modularised content: Google knowledge panels
NHS Digital Product manager James Lumgair talks about how the NHS website is getting trusted, accurate health information in front of more users than ever before through 'knowledge panels' on Google search result pages.
Product Manager,
How I learned to code
In the run-up to International Women’s Day, cyber security graduate Lianne Potter describes how she retrained to become a coder after redundancy and is now protecting the NHS from cyber threats.
Cyber Security Graduate,
Regulating AI in health and care
Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX, explains why he convened a round-table of regulators to talk AI, and what the plan is.
Chief Executive Officer, NHSX,
My cyber security journey
NHS Digital's Peter Robinson takes us through his journey from apprentice to professional within the Cyber Security team.
Cyber Security Advisor,
Ten years fighting for a single language
SNOMED CT is the clinical vocabulary for electronic patient health records across the NHS. Denise Downs, Principal Terminology Specialist, talks about the ‘major stock take’ that the implementation of SNOMED CT across general practice involved and how she gained the support of clinicians.
Principal Terminology Specialist,
Creating an integration toolkit for NHS login
Rebecca Jarratt, lead delivery manager for NHS login partner onboarding, explains how the NHS login team worked with organisations to develop a self-service toolkit that supports them to adopt NHS login – while ensuring the team maintains control over the integration process.
Lead Delivery Manager,
Making digital services more inclusive
The NHS digital service manual helps teams make their services more respectful and inclusive. But it’s not always easy to get it right as Sara Wilcox, the content designer on the team, explains.
Senior Content Designer, NHS.UK,
Does cyber security have to be painful?
Dan Jeffery, Head of Innovation, Delivery and Business Operations at NHS Digital’s Data Security Centre, explains how automation within NHSmail is delivering improved cyber security.
Head of Innovation, Delivery and Business Operations,
How TV gets cyber wrong
Hackers and cyber attacks feature in many films and television programmes, but are these portrayals accurate? Hecham Mrabet, cyber security specialist at NHS Digital, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how a cyber security centre runs in real life.
Senior Security Specialist,
How to write good questions
The NHS digital service manual team has published new forms guidance that will help digital health teams design better forms and transactional services.
Senior Content Designer, NHS.UK,
Is cyber a man's world?
Cyber security still has an out-dated image of being a masculine profession. Charlotte Roe, Cyber Security Apprentice at NHS Digital, talks about her job and why women are needed in the world of cyber.
Cyber Security Apprentice,
What do innovators think?
When NHSX launched in July, it committed to serving users’ needs and creating an environment that nurtures innovation. Lisa Hollins, Director of Innovation Delivery at NHSX, talks about what innovators are telling her should be the system’s top priorities.
Director of Innovation Delivery, NHSX,
Why is there an 8am rush on the NHS App?
Josh Dresner, User Researcher, has been digging deep into users' experience of the NHS App. He has found some GP practices using the app to transform access to services, while others are still stuck in old ways.
User Researcher,
How we're improving cyber security
As we kick off Cyber Security Awareness Month, NHS Digital’s Interim Chief Information Security Officer Dan Pearce explains how NHS cyber security has been strengthened over the past two years.
Interim Chief Information Security Officer,
Welcoming new health data research hubs
Research partnerships can save and improve lives as long as they are underpinned by robust and ethical frameworks.
Citizen Identity – the evolution of username password security
How do we give the public secure access to their healthcare data and NHS services? Lead Delivery Manager Richard McStay talks about NHS login and the NHS Digital Citizen Identity team’s work to ensure people can prove their identity when signing up for online services.
Lead Delivery Manager,
Modularised content: The future of the NHS website
Content modularisation of the NHS website will help our content reach more people via search engines, voice-activated devices, chatbots and wearable devices. NHS Digital Product Manager James Lumgair explains more.
Product Manager,
Making digital services accessible
Ian Roddis, Lead Product Manager for the NHS digital service manual, talks about the new guidelines his team has developed to help people working in digital delivery teams meet accessibility standards in time for September 2020’s deadline.
Lead Product Manager, NHS digital service manual,
How we are talking to Alexa
The NHS website team has worked with Amazon’s Alexa team to offer health information by voice search. Eva Lake, Head of Engagement for the website, explains how the collaboration is working.
Head of Engagement, NHS.UK,