Now part of NHS England, NHS Improvement was responsible for overseeing the NHS' trusts and foundation trusts, as well as independent providers of NHS-funded care. We built a strong relationship with NHSI and developed a range of agile, exciting products to suit their needs.
Service:
The Challenge
NHS Improvement needed a robust, extensible content management system that was powerful yet easy to use. Before we could start work we entered a highly competitive tendering process, and we were commissioned to work on the project based on our expertise in delivering GDS-compliant open-source Python websites and applications in the public sector.
The Purpose
The first stage of the project, in 2016, was building a content management system (CMS) that was to be used by NHS Improvement staff. Drawing on 10 years of Python and Django development expertise, we created a Wagtail-powered CMS and then trained the NHSI staff to use it effectively.
In 2018, we were commissioned for a second phase thanks to the success of the CMS project. This phase had a more technical focus, and we developed a bespoke Okta identity management solution, which included a bespoke management interface that allowed thousands of NHS staff members to easily register for and access multiple applications.
As we were building other products within the NHSI application catalogue, it made sense to unify them all. So, we conducted a full migration to Docker, Kubernetes, and a Continuous Integration solution within their Microsoft Azure environment to bring these products together, fully testing them to ensure the migration was successful.
Our excellent relationship with NHSI has lead us to deliver a bespoke data collection platform, used by senior staff across NHS Trusts to provide mission-critical performance data to NHSI analysts.
The Outcome
Since winning the pitch back in 2016, we have enjoyed a fantastic relationship with NHSI, and we've been lucky enough to work on exciting, interesting and impactful projects to help NHSI staff continue their crucial work, and ensure important content, data and applications are easy to use for those who need to use them.
.
