4. Onboard stages

When you are ready to explore the NEMS service, please email the NEMS team for guidance through the end to end process. 

Some of the steps include:

• assess suitability for NEMS via IWG process 
• detail the required NEMS Assurance stages to complete
• ensure pre-requisites are met
• verify plans for development
• advise on next steps to begin testing
• issue the latest version of the Supplier Conformance Assessment List (SCAL) that is tailored to reflect any previous conformance testing undertaken with NHS Digital

The team will verify that the organisation wishing to onboard to NEMS meets the basic entry criteria to use the product and the requestor has received approval from the IWG to ensure that NEMS is the appropriate route to provide the service.

To use the service organisations MUST have most of these pre-requisites in place prior to starting development activities along with the approval from the IWG.

The NHS Digital Interoperability Working Group (IWG) is a panel of subject matter experts analysing information sharing requests and providing recommendations, the group membership represents the following professions

• clinical
• information governance
• business (live services)
• technical architecture 

The NHS Digital onboarding team will guide you through the required documentation to support the process. Please contact the team. 

Requests are assessed by a multidisciplinary team with representation from the business, clinical safety, information governance and technical architecture to determine:

• validity of the sharing request
• necessity, proportionality, and lawful basis
• the organisation’s and its end user’s appropriateness for the sharing of the information
• appropriate architectural pattern to apply based on the end user needs

Toolkit Workbench (TKW)

Following completion of pre-requisites activities, the team will grant authority to proceed to Local (Toolkit Workbench (TKW)) Testing activities through the following steps

• receive a copy of the SCAL
• work with NHS Digital Solution Assurance team to obtain a copy of test scripts and obtain access to opentest environment 

To proceed to INT testing, the organisation MUST demonstrate they can validate messages against the TKW as per the NHS Digital Solution Assurance team requirements.

INT testing 

The NHS Digital INT Environment is a sandbox environment for testing the functionality to NEMS and a pre-test to ensure that the organisations development is safe to use on the Live Spine environment.

The steps involved in this phase include.

1. Access to the INT environment will be setup prior to completing TKW activities to avoid delays.  Details on requesting setup to INT can be found in section 4.3
2. Continue working with the NHS Digital Solution Assurance (SA) team executing the test cases provided and record test evidence to share with SA team
3. Request catbag codes. You will need to contact the NRL and NEMS team to receive these by emailing [email protected]. The types issued are subjective to what event types and subscription types have been approved at IWG. ‘Cat bag’ properties are used on a user’s ASID to determine what events a user is permitted to subscribe to, and what kinds of subscriptions a user is permitted to create. 
4. Receive Technical Conformance Certificate (TCC). Once the solution assurance team are satisfied the test requirements are met a Conformance Certificate (TCC) will be issued to confirm suitability for go-live. 
5. Update SCAL to reflect the testing activities.

Before an organisation is granted access to a live environment they would be expected to sign

• a connection agreement (agreement between Connecting Party and NHSD) 
• a Data Sharing Agreement (DSA). It is the responsibility of the data processor to ensure that it is circulated and agreed with all data controllers. 

To avoid delays to go live these agreements may be provided earlier.

The organisation will also run though a go-no-go checklist with the NEMS team to ensure all requirements have been met.  

With all assurance requirements complete, the organisation moves NEMS into business-as-usual activities.