As previously communicated, to improve stability of the Care Identity Service (CIS) platform we are moving the live CIS service (comprising authentication and application services) to the Cloud.
As a reminder, the transition is now re-scheduled to start on Friday 9 July 2021 (BST) 18:30. As before, during this transition, Authentication and the Directory Service will remain available. From the start of the transition, the Care Identity Service application including any CMS operations on smartcards will be unavailable. The CIS application will be unavailable until the Authentication cutover is completed and agreement to turn it on is confirmed on Monday 12 July. In summary, the key milestones over the transition are:
Step 1: We will close the front doors to the CIS Application and banner up on 9 July 2021 at (BST) 18:30.
Step 2: Cutover CIS Authentication to the Cloud on 10 July at (BST) 04:00.
Step 3: CIS application planned to be brought back into live service on 12 July 2021 (time to be agreed but will be brought back into service at the earliest opportunity).
Many organisations, will have already made the pre-requisite changes, as noted in a previous newsletter. If you haven’t please can you ensure they are completed ahead of the cutover date. If you haven’t but would like to, you can still perform a pre go-live connectivity check but the details have changed. Please see below for details.
NHS Digital strongly recommend that you ensure your clinical teams are aware of the change taking place, and are also aware of your local business continuity plans and how they should be initiated. Again, this is to ensure that any issues with the transition can also be mitigated at a local level.
NHS Digital also strongly advise that you have technical support in place from the point of the CIS authentication cutover which is at 04:00 on July 10, until you are confident the transition has been successful for your users. This is to ensure that you have local IT support should it be required.
