A pipeline notice from NHS England has indicated an upcoming opportunity with a value of up to £40 million for support capabilities relating to NHS Digital Citizen, covering products and services including the NHS App, NHS Proxy, and NHS.uk.
The main focuses of the contract will be providing support capability for NHS Proxy and National Digital Channels User Insight, NHSE states, with additional work across other Digital Citizen products also potentially required during the contract span.
For the National Proxy Service, the programme focus is to establish a secure and scalable mechanism to manage proxy relationships for NHS digital services, allowing parents and carers to book and manage appointments, access repeat prescriptions, and view patient records for those they care for via digital services like the NHS App. Its initial pilot is allowing proxy access to be requested from GPs through digital channels, and is said to support GPs in making informed decisions around granting this access.
The National Digital Channels User Insight Capability, NHSE continues, was designed to offer insight into NHS App use, including demographics, to help establish whether inequalities exist in terms of access and engagement.
The procurement will proceed via Crown Commercial Service – RM6345 Digital Capability for Health 2 under PCR 2015, the notice outlines, with any procurement or award subject to budgetary approval. Initial dates are given as March 2027 to February 2030, with an extension possible for a further two years.
Wider trend: NHS England
NHS England has published a new funding opportunity building on the digital medicines first of type schemes, focusing on scalable technical capability across EPR and ePMA workflows, and GP Connect. The revenue stream is focused across two themes, in medicines on admission, looking for EPR and ePMA capability to “consume fully structured GP medicines” via GP Connect. It also seeks similar capabilities in closed loop medicines management, to include end-to-end and standards-based interoperability for closed loop medicines workflows in EPR and ePMA, as well as automated dispensing cabinets, and pharmacy stock control systems.
NHS England has published the latest version of the GPIT Operating Model alongside a new ICB practice agreement, to outline the terms around the provision of digital services in general practice. The updated ICB practice agreement sets out that ICBs are responsible for providing at a minimum the digital services to meet core and mandated requirements for practices. At least once per year, ICBs should formally review digital services with practices, incorporating discussion of performance, implementation plans, training requirements, business continuity or incident management arrangements, and plans for future delivery of digital services.
NHS England has selected IBM and Palo Alto Networks to partner on the NHS Secure Boundary service, offering AI-enabled cyber security and “future-ready” threat protection for the health system. The service will establish a cloud-native cyber security platform featuring AI-driven threat detection and built-in web application firewall protection, according to IBM, to include support for mobile and remote users. It will grant centralised national threat intelligence and monitoring integrated with the NHS Cyber Security Operations Centre, with options for security policies to be customised locally.
