Capabilities, epics and standards

Capabilities, epics and standards are used for software solutions. They ensure solutions contain the functionality needed by primary care health organisations. For suppliers to be compliant they must meet the business needs and rules defined. Once they can show they are compliant, solutions can be listed on the NHS Buying Catalogue. 

Capabilities and standards are important. They ensure that organisations select solutions that deliver the features needed. 

Capabilities are a set of requirements. They are for suppliers who provide solutions for:

• integrated care boards
• primary care organisations

Solutions are assured when they meet the capabilities. Only then will they be made available for purchase via our procurement routes.

Capabilities can describe a business need. It might be useful to become familiar with our capabilities if you are:

• validating user needs
• collating requirements as part of the procurement process

For example, you may want to enable GP staff to conduct a video consultation with patients.

To find solutions which offer video consultations on the Buying Catalogue:

• filter the solutions by viewing the consultation category
• select video consultation

This will display solutions which offer video consultations.

Capabilities are grouped according to the business needs of primary care organisations. The groupings and capabilities are:

Each capability has a subset of functionalities called Epics. These describe what additional functions can be present in the solution. For example, you want the video consultation solution to directly record the outcome of the consultation to the patient's record.

Foundation systems contain core functionality needed by a healthcare organisation. They enable a practice to operate. To be listed as a foundation system, a solution must meet the following 6 core capabilities:

• appointments management – GP
• referral management
• resource management
• patient information maintenance
• prescribing
• recording consultations

Some foundation solutions offer a broader range of functionality. These may be assessed against other capabilities. 
There are also non foundation solutions available to ICBs. These are assessed against their own set of capabilities.

For a software solution to work it must meet technical and operating conditions. Standards describe these conditions.

Standards are used:

• to outline any technical and non-functional requirements. They define how the system should perform rather than what it does
• by suppliers to understand what is expected of them to be compliant
• by the Catalogue Authority team who assess solutions using them and provide approval

Where possible we use existing, universally recognised standards. For example, a document management capability may include an existing standard that defines the correct text size. Standards help you assess suppliers against each other for a competitive procurement.

If a solution has met these standards, it is compliant and:

• will be added to a framework
• published on the Buying Catalogue
• become available for other procurement routes