NHS England: Various Projects
Link to website: https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/covid-19-services/covid-19-vaccination-services/book-covid-19-vaccination/
Project Overview:
The National Booking Service (NBS) is the online platform for citizens in England to book and manage their COVID-19 vaccinations and flu appointments. During my time working with NHS England I worked on various NBS projects, with the main focus of maintaining and enhancing the service for user experience and efficiency for citizens.
Target Audience:
This project served a broad audience, including:
- Citizens across England seeking COVID-19 vaccinations and flu appointments.
- Vaccination site staff responsible for managing appointments.
- Arrival stewards who assist with check-in at vaccination sites.
Research Process:
- Identifying Booking Issues: We analyzed user data and feedback to pinpoint areas where citizens encountered difficulties booking appointments. User research methods like interviews with staff and citizens as well as surveys helped us identify pain points.
- Understanding Site Needs: Through collaboration with vaccination sites, we gained insights into their appointment management processes and challenges. Interviews with staff uncovered any friction points within the back-end platform hindering their workflow.
Design and Implementation:
- Iterative Design: Working closely with designers and developers, we created and tested wireframes and prototypes to address identified booking obstacles. This iterative process ensured solutions met user needs.
- Enhanced Functionality: Moving out of the pandemic, the focus was largely on enhancements for a “business as usual” service:
- Combined Booking: We introduced functionality allowing citizens to book both COVID and flu vaccinations in a single appointment, streamlining the booking process and saving users time.
- Joint Appointments: A new feature allowed couples or companions to book vaccinations together, improving convenience for users.
- Arrival Steward Apps: We redesigned and updated the arrival steward check-in app, improving usability and efficiency for staff managing patient flow. We also introduced a new “check-in” app for stewards, offering enhanced functionality.
- Access needs and reasonable adjustments: Discovery into access needs and reasonable adjustments for citizens at vaccination sites.
- Vaccine-Agnostic Approach: Through research with vaccination sites, we explored ways to transition from vaccine-specific appointment creation to a more flexible “vaccine agnostic” system. This allowed for greater adaptability and simplifies appointment management.
Outcomes
By focusing on user-centered design and collaboration, these improvements produced:
- Reduce booking difficulties: Enhancements aimed to streamline the booking process, minimizing user frustration and improving accessibility for citizens.
- Increase service efficiency: Updated apps and a more flexible appointment system aimed to improve workflow for vaccination site staff and arrival stewards.
- Adapt to changing needs: With the pandemic evolving, the National Booking Service needed to adapt. These changes aimed to ensure the platform remained user-friendly and efficient in a “business as usual” setting.
- Reduction in user errors or abandoned bookings during the appointment booking process.
- Increased user satisfaction ratings through surveys or feedback forms.
- Improved appointment management efficiency at vaccination sites.
Research in ‘Co-administration’: Booking a covid and flu vaccine in a single appointment
Research into communication letters sent to citizens to book a co-admin appointment
Summary of findings on communication letters for co-admin appointments
Research into the check-in app for arrival stewards
Understanding how the check-in process works across different vaccination sites. During the pandemic sites adopted different methods for checking patients in depending on their set-up. Understanding the variations in how this worked helped with redesigning the check-in app.
Page from summary report into the access needs and reasonable adjustment discovery
Research into how well NBS provides access needs and reasonable adjustments for sites across the country
Analysis into how sites set up access needs within their systems and the different complexities involved. This helped to identify opportunities for improvements to the staff facing service.
Implementing vaccine agnotistic appointment scheduling
Research into understanding the processes involved at vaccination sites when planning to appointments based around number of vaccine available, staff availability and the capacity at the site as well as the IT system used. Insight such as this helped to define our approach to making improvements to the staff appointment service to make calendars ‘vaccine agnostic’.
How staff-facing user selections would be shown based on research findings
Research into how vaccine agnostic appointments would be viewed by staff