We’re half‑way through a discovery into how Digital Prevention Services teams present results to NHS app users.
At the highest level we’re using the discovery to answer 3 questions.
- Are there user needs that could be better met by how results work in the app?
- Are there team needs that could be met by a shared way of publishing results?
- Is it feasible, from a governance, clinical, technical and organisational perspective?
Each of these questions has many sub‑questions.
By results and findings we mean the outcomes of NHS tests, checks and screening, including what they mean and what to do next.
For us, these things make something a result or finding:
- personal to the user (not general health advice)
- the output of a measurement, test, check, or screen the NHS did
- there is an action or a reassurance (for example, you need to do this, don’t need to do anything, or we’ll contact you again in 5 years)
Screening teams often prefer ’findings’ because screening identifies risk or indications rather than diagnoses. The NHS app uses ‘results’ because that’s the word users are familiar with. We’re using both for now.
Currently, there are 3 ways a user could see results in the app:
- as a message
- as part of their patient record
- as a link from the main nav (this is only for users who have completed their NHS Health Check online)
Messages give users the best context, doing the most to help a user understand what their results mean and what they need to do next. However, message inboxes can fill up, results compete with other messages, and they’re harder to return to later.
Results in the patient record have limitations:
- they arrive as a stream, so finding a specific result is hard
- over 50,000 types of result can appear, and there’s no way to curate what shows
- we can’t group related results together (like HPV and Cytology tests)
- we can’t show change over time (like weight or blood pressure trends)
The NHS Health Check online results page might be a better model, but it only works for one set of tests. There’s no wider journey beyond it, except a GP referral when results need follow‑up.
At this stage of the discovery, things are taking shape. We’re seeing good evidence of how we can better meet user needs. There’s long‑term potential to add value if results all work in the same way. And there’s enough consistency in team approaches to feel like we can offer tech that won’t be too much of a burden to adopt.
Organisationally I think there’s scope. There are newer teams looking at solving this problem who we should be able to support. The more mature teams will take more time and planning.
We’re still looking into the clinical and governance questions, but they will need detail that comes during an alpha to answer them.
The discovery has been really good for us as a team. Everyone has a clear focus on the questions they’re answering. We start each week with a summary of what we learnt last week. This session is the one I look forward to most. It’s fun having the strands of a discovery come together.