Prerequisites for a NEMS project

Please also refer to Appendix A - implementation plan to support the pre-requisite work.

This area of work is about ensuring you have the right people with the right skills to implement NEMs Interoperability and that you know how you will handle any problems or issues that come up during your project. 

Brief your senior managers on what NEMs interoperability is, the benefits and why it is important that your organisation implements it. 

Identify a project lead

You should identify someone to act as the project lead or project coordinator. This person will be the main point of contact for the project and for communicating with your supplier and the NHSX Implementation team. They will also be responsible for informing the NHS Digital Live Services team when you are ready to proceed to implementation. They will be responsible for keeping track of who is doing what and monitoring progress against the actions you agree. Ideally the person should have some project management expertise. This person could be a project manager but may also be the head of service or part of IT within your organisation.

Being the project lead usually takes around 25% of a full-time role for the duration of the project, or more if you are actively involved in testing, staff training and delivery. Without a clear project lead, the work is likely to drift and to not be completed successfully.

Agree the scope of the implementation

It is important to agree which of the messages available over NEMs you wish to implement (the more you implement the greater the benefits) and look at what you hope to achieve. The section in this document on benefits should help you assess what is possible.

You should work with your suppliers, commissioners and NHSX Implementation team to agree the scope of the project and the planned timeframes. It is advisable to implement one care setting at a time to reduce disruption.

Identify project team members

You should consider having named representatives to cover off the following roles:

• primary contact for example project manager
• IT lead
• business change manager
• information governance lead
• clinical safety lead
• benefits lead
• a subject matter expert/service lead depending on where NEMS is being implemented (this may also be the project manager)
• supplier lead
• resource to carry out User Acceptance testing (UAT) – this may be the team impacted or IT resource.

Identify someone in each of these teams or someone who will carry out the role to support the project. Members of the project team should attend a local briefing about NEMs interoperability with your project manager at the start of your project. This could be a face-to-face meeting or a Teams meeting.

Agree high level implementation plan, target go live date and method to monitor progress

It is useful to have an implementation plan in place that will enable you to track progress against key milestones (see template in Appendix A to support you – this is not a complete task list but includes the key areas). The project lead should keep in regular contact with each member of the project team and check progress against the actions you have agreed. This does not need to be done by bringing the whole team together at a meeting, but it can help when working through issues or at important stages of the project.

You will need the support of your service lead, informatics lead, information governance lead, clinical lead and possibly your chief executive and senior management team. You will need to ensure all staff impacted by the change are also informed. Securing this commitment at the outset will ensure that the project receives adequate priority and resource allocated to it.

Externally, you should initiate engagement with your commissioner for the service you are implementing and your supplier to ensure you are all working together.  You must also ensure services outside your organisation are informed if the project impacts them.

We recommend that you speak to the above stakeholders and try to maintain regular contact with them during your implementation project.  Dependent on the extent of the change, you could consider putting a Communications Plan in place and/or engaging with your communications team for support.

Where possible, use your existing risk and issue management process. If you don’t have a process, as a project team, agree how decisions will be made and recorded. Define when an issue or risk to the project will be escalated, who will escalate it, and who they will escalate it to. Then have this agreed by your IG lead/leadership team so they are aware how you will escalate issues that need their attention or support.

You may have an established benefits management process, e.g., linked to your change processes and any improvement initiatives which will apply to this project. If not, some example guidance, templates and expected benefits are available on our website/as part of this guidance. See Appendix D for an example of a Benefits template.

Don’t forget that you can contact the NHSX implementation team for support at any time. They can help you through issues or put you in touch with other organisations to discuss the approach they took to overcome them.

As part of the implementation process you will need to work with your supplier to activate NEMS and they will need to provide information to you about the system they are providing NEMS on.  They should provide you with the NEMS technical specification or release notes informing you about how their system works. Please contact your supplier account manager and inform them that you wish to implement NEMS, and they will work with you to complete the on-boarding checklist and the Rollout form and agree an implementation date.

There are several other elements you will need to have in place to implement NEMs including:

• HSCN connection
• Organisation Data Services (ODS) code
• consistent use of NHS number to identify patients
• a system able to verify NHS numbers via any of the following  a full PDS Spine compliant system (CAP approved) or Spine Mini Service PDS (SMSP)
• smartcards for the NHS Digital DEP environment and the ability to switch a PC from live to DEP and back to Live (or a dedicated device).  
• smartcards for the Integration environment (suppliers only)
• child health systems must also have meet the CHIS OBS available from NHS England and have a valid live contract with an NHS provider organisation.
• community children’s systems must have a valid live contact with an NHS provider organisation
• DPCHR systems must also have meet the Royal Collage of Paediatrics and Child Health ePCHR standard or NHSX certification when available. There is no requirement to have a live contract with an NHS organisation in place but it is desirable

You may require firewall configuration changes to be made as well as Smartcards configured for the NHS Digital Deployment environment (as well as Live) if you are going to be carrying out User Acceptance Testing (UAT), so it is worth making sure you have IT support on hand.

Once you are ready to proceed, please email [email protected] and they will confirm where you fit into the implementation pipeline.