Development, Maintenance and Support of the NHS COVID-19 Contact Tracing Application

Description

Summary of the work A delivery partner is required to continue to develop, maintain and support the NHS COVID-19 app, which includes class 1 medical device features. All app features must conform to clinical safety standards. It is anticipated a team of c.20 is required, including iOS/Android developers, DevOps, architects, system testers and engineers. Expected Contract Length Initial term to 31 December 2022, with an optional extension up to 3 months. Latest start date Monday 14 February 2022 Budget Range It is estimated that the budget will range between £3m and £5m. Why the Work is Being Done The NHS COVID-19 app is designed to help the people of England and Wales stop the spread of coronavirus. The app provides a digital contact tracing capability with privacy by design, to identify people potentially at risk of COVID-19 and provide guidance to help break the chains of transmission. As the pandemic has evolved, the app has shifted from being an ‘isolation tool’ to a ‘personal risk management tool’, providing users with information and data to help them make decisions about how to manage risk to themselves and others. The app continues to play a pivotal part in the overall pandemic response - ultimately helping to prevent hospitalisations and deaths. The future of the app throughout 2022 is dependent on the course of the pandemic and wider policy decisions. UKHSA is preparing for all eventualities, undertaking risk and contingency planning and prioritising operations accordingly. UKHSA is considering how the response to COVID-19 as a whole could be reviewed in H1 2022 so that it is proportionate to need while continuing to protect those most at risk; maintain a degree of epidemic surveillance; respond to localised outbreaks and have contingencies in place for COVID-19 resurgence or other future health threats. Problem to Be Solved The NHS COVID-19 app was launched in H2 2020 with the support of a specialist partner who took end-to-end responsibility for all aspects of design, build, maintenance & support, aided by internal SMEs. Design & Management has now been transitioned to in-house teams alongside some elements of Incident Management & Infrastructure Support. There is a requirement for the partner chosen to lead on the development efforts that underpin the roadmap to ensure the app provides user value, aligns with wider England and Wales Test, Trace and Isolate policies, and encourages people to keep downloading and using the app. The programme requires a technical delivery partner to drive and deliver, maintain and support the app and its architecture. This includes the public app statistics dashboard; Financial Support Payment Gateway; Official NHS QR code poster creation and administration system, and Amazon AWS cloud infrastructure required to support these services. Who Are the Users The app is available to anyone aged 16+ in England and Wales, and has been developed for and with people from different age groups, backgrounds, genders, with different levels of digital skill. As an app user: - I need to be alerted if I've been exposed to COVID-19 so I can take steps to protect myself and others, such as booking a test, checking my symptoms, and/or self-isolating - I need to understand the COVID-19 risk in my area, including whether there is a variant of concern, surge testing, changes to national guidance, or other useful information, so I can make informed decisions about how to protect myself and others - I need to access financial support when I am entitled to it through self-isolation, so I am not disadvantaged by protecting others from COVID-19 As a venue owner: - I need to print and display an NHS QR code poster so I can allow visitors to check into my venue and get alerted if they've been exposed to COVID-19 As an interested party (e.g. local authorities and epidemiologists): - I need to see published data about app usage so I can draw conclusions about how the app is working. Work Already Done The NHS COVID-19 app is a live service across England and Wales with over 28m downloads and is available in 12 languages. Additional information can be found on the official website: https://covid19.nhs.uk The app is interoperable with other contact tracing apps listed below in other nations: • PROTECT SCOT (Scotland) • STOPCOVID NI (Northern Ireland) • JERSEY COVID ALERT (Jersey) • BEAT COVID GIBRALTAR (Gibraltar) Existing Team The overall app delivery and management team consists of an in-house team of product; policy; delivery management; design (UX/UI/Content Design); medical & clinical safety; probity; data analytics; data science; quality assurance; marketing and communications. The supplier will be expected to provide capability in addition to these internal roles to meet the requirements. For instance, the current supplier provides technology services including a team of developers, system testers, technical leads, mobile architect, API dev and infrastructure support as well as subject matter expertise on medical and clinical risk assessment, data scientists and user research. Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Delivery Experience: Experience developing mobile applications for iOS and Android, especially for user journeys that require hand-off to and from web journeys and iterating based on user research. • Technical expertise: AWS hosting / native services, Java, Kotlin , Ruby, Terraform and testing using Python (Robot Framework), JUnit, Kotlin , Java Device APIs and protocol stacks for integrations. • Experience working on a medical device: Experience with the design, development, delivery and maintenance of a medical device software and experience in clinical safety compliance. • Agile ways of working and GDS standards: deliver features in an agile, iterative, and incremental way, working in multiple squads; experience of working within the government digital service standard. • Delivery management: Experience of providing mixed technical capabilities within a fast-paced, multi-functional agile team; maintaining priority on user centred design practices, balanced against technical demands/constraints & delivery timescales. • Inclusive Design: Experience in providing inclusive design support to test concepts or find solutions to identified accessibility and inclusive design issues; comply and manage Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-2.1). • Transition: Experience and expertise of managing transition and knowledge transfer from the existing supplier • Operational capability: Experience delivering and running maintainable, scalable and secure operational live services for users at national scale, with minimum 12 X 5 support model • Research & Data Science: Experience of providing AWS support to resolve data, infrastructure or architecture issues, data engineering and analysis (including epidemiological analysis) - https://stats.app.covid19.nhs.uk/ Nice to Haves • Code branching that allows development teams to work on different parts of a project without impacting each other & merging into master branch • Use of feature flags as a method to promote code between releases. • Experience of decommissioning, including controlled close, archive, documentation and process control. • Expertise in Incident management and provide response, recovery, and resolution of production incidents for defined service levels for the systems in scope covering 24 X 7 period. • Experience to implement clear business continuity and disaster recovery plans and solutions function as designed and meet the defined Recovery Time and Recovery Point Objectives. Work Location The expectation is that all resources will be based in the UK. Work to be carried out remotely or on site (London) as required. Working Arrangments The supplier shall provide laptops to the team working on the programme and should access UKHSA and NHS COVID-19 infrastructure through UKHSA-provided VDI. Supplier resources should be familiar with the standard tools and services used for the management and development of the app, including Jira, Slack, Confluence, GitHub, Figma, Lokalise and Miro. Supplier resources will be expected to work collaboratively in an agile environment, within a squad led by the Product Owner. Developers will refine stories for development, provide estimations for change, continue to engage discovery squads during development as required, and proactively manage risk to deliver features. Security Clearance All personnel must have completed Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) vetting or local equivalent (to be agreed with the UKHSA security team) before working on the NHS COVID-19 app. All personnel shall be UK resident on-shore resources. Any exception to this needs to be agreed in writing with UKHSA. Additional T&Cs Termination for convenience clause with 30 days notice. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Provide example/s of previous mobile app build and infrastructure management of a similar size / scale and complexity in agile ways of working, following GDS standards • Provide example/s of design, development, delivery and maintenance of medical device software (Class I), which comply with the UK MDR and clinical safety compliance process for software releases • Provide example/s of working in a matrix environment and seamlessly transitioning delivery capability from incumbent supplier • Provide example/s of delivering apps that are interoperable with other systems and link with emerging platform strategy • Provide example/s of delivering at pace with a detailed understanding of technical and business solutions to allow on-going support and further development • Provide detail of experience of your proposed team and the skills required to deliver the work req • Proven experience of knowledge sharing and skills transfer with in-house teams so as to build sustainable capability Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers: provide a summary and expertise of working with multiple stakeholders • Share knowledge and experience with other team members • Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes • Can work with clients with low technical expertise Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Please can you provide details of what the next steps are following this initial application i.e. deadlines for the written proposal/if there will be an interview and when? Completed applications will be assessed and evaluation feedback will be provided to all bidders by 23/12/2021, For shortlisted bidders, the bid period will commence on the 05/01/2022 to 19/01/2022. All shortlisted bidders must submit their final detailed written proposals by the 19/01/22. 2. Please can you share the procurement timelines? Completed applications will be assessed and evaluation feedback will be provided to all bidders by 23/12/2021, For shortlisted bidders, the bid period will commence on the 05/01/2022 to 19/01/2022. All shortlisted bidders must submit their final detailed written proposals by the 19/01/22. 3. Please can you confirm the name of the current supplier? Zuhlke Engineering Limited 4. To what extent is the product backlog known and prioritised? Product Roadmap is created every Quarter, with review and prioritisation taking place every week to plan for upcoming releases. Flexibility is required to revise the sprint scope to accommodate any urgent policy requirements. 5. Please can you confirm the roles / team structure that you would anticipate needing to mobilise on commencement? It is anticipated a team of c.20 is required, including: Delivery Manager,  iOS/Android developers, DevOps, architects, system testers and engineers.