Health assessments discovery

The discovery into health assessments finished this week.

We asked the team to explore if we could offer more ways for people to assess their health online.

The team created a framework to examine the many different health assessments currently available, like pre‑screening for lung cancer or calculating diabetes risk.

The framework measured health assessments on how easily they could be implemented digitally, their impact on users’ health and health inequalities, and benefit to the NHS.

The team recommended several health assessments to take forward into an alpha phase.

It’s an exemplary piece of work. Clear thinking, well explained, with actionable recommendations.

Thanks to Jules Fiddler, Anisha Kanabar, Mike Watson, Jade Conroy, Murilo Lessa, and Graham Dodsworth.

I’ll link to the design history summary when it’s published.

The team are likely to create a first use case around pre‑screening for lung cancer. There are a few reasons for this:

  • lung cancer screening attendance is lower that many other types of screening
  • the current pre‑screening is a simple set of questions that currently require a phone call, so there’s potential for improved access through an additional channel and cost‑saving through an improved process
  • it proves the potential advantage of our strategy, making each contact more valuable, in this case helping more eligible people access screening and support to stop smoking

Life and death business cases

As part of the Spending Review, Digital Prevention Services is creating several business cases.

Creating a business case for our strategy adds useful rigour and invites wider collaboration.

Projecting years ahead for something so unproven requires big leaps of imagination. We’re in very early stages, so maybe it will become more evidence‑based as we go.

Looking at our work through an economic lens is necessary but gets dark fast. There are measures of economic value for years of life added, working life extended, and quality of life. I find it hard not to think about what these numbers mean for real people and their families. It’s unsettling.

Vendors

We often speak to external companies who have built something in our space and want to work with us.

Each is different, but there’s a pattern to these conversations:

  1. Their software is sophisticated and feature‑rich, which frustrates me that we’re so far behind. Decades of outsourcing tech means the NHS has lost so much institutional knowledge.

  2. If their services are good and affordable, we should work with them. But one of our biggest problems in improving services is vendor lock‑in.

I have a strong bias against enterprise software, but I'll support a pragmatic solution every time.

Links