HSCN Incident reporting and management approach (SMINC)

An incident which

• Constitutes a loss of the Service which prevents any traffic from routing correctly for multiple customers (including COINS where multiple consumers are impacted)
• Disconnection from any of the HSCN central capabilities
• Has a critical impact on the activities of multiple customers
• Causes significant financial loss and/or disruption to multiple customers
• Constitutes a critical security risk

Non-exhaustive examples

• loss of interconnect between a CN-SP and the Secure Boundary Service that results in a loss of internet connectivity for one or more HSCN Consumers
• loss of interconnect between a CN-SP and a Peering Exchange Network Provider that results in a loss of connectivity for one or more HSCN Consumers
• loss of interconnect between a CN-SP and the Network Analytics Service that results in the CN-SP not sending Network Traffic Information to NHS Digital
• failure of any core component within the CN-SPs boundary which results in an outage for multiple consumers
• failure of a supporting component (such as a fibre) provided by a key strategic supplier resulting in an outage for HSCN consumers
• any network security incident within a CN-SP’s service boundary

Severity Core Level 1 Resolution time SLA: less than 5 hours

Severity 1 – Access Level (Guiding Principles)

an incident which, in the reasonable opinion of the customer

• constitutes a loss of the Service which prevents any traffic from routing correctly
• has a critical impact on the activities of the Customer
• causes significant financial loss and/or disruption to the Customer
• constitutes a critical security risk for the customer
• identified as having a Clinical Safety impact resulting in an impact to patient care

non exhaustive examples  

• consumer connectivity to the HSCN is lost
• HSCN traffic cannot be routed to the Internet
• Service Failure Thresholds are at risk of not being achieved

Severity Access Level 1 Resolution time SLA: Standard, Enhanced or Reduced

Core Level guiding principles  

An incident which

• constitutes a loss of resilience to any of the HSCN central capabilities
• performance degradation across the network resulting in slower or restricted connectivity for consumers

Non-exhaustive examples

• loss of interconnect between a CN-SP and the Secure Boundary Service that results in a loss of resilience
• loss of interconnect between a CN-SP and a Peering Exchange Network Provider that results in a loss of resilience
• loss of interconnect between a CN-SP and the Network Analytics Service that results in a loss of resilience
• failure of any core component within the CN-SPs boundary which results in network performance degradation for consumers where no access level severity 1 incidents have been raised

Severity 2 Access Level Guiding Principles

An Incident which, in the reasonable opinion of the customer has an (non-critical) adverse impact on the activities of the Customer and no workaround acceptable to the Customer is available.

Non-exhaustive examples

• resilience reduced
• performance degraded
• risk of significant financial or clinical impact
• service level thresholds are at risk of not being achieved

Severity 2 Resolution time SLA:  less than 8 hours. 

There are only certain circumstances that require you to make contact with NHS Digital to notify us of a HSSI as part of real time Incident Management. These principles are shown in this table.

CNSPs are still expected to provide information on all HSSIs if requested by NHS Digital on an ad-hoc basis. This will only be done if there is concern of wider business, security or clinical impact through intelligence or escalations from NHS sources.

Severity 1 Core

There is a requirement to notify the Service Co-ordinator of any Severity 1 incident where the component failure is within your Core network and is confirmed to be impacting multiple consumer access circuits resulting in an outage to their services. This includes loss of connectivity to any of the HSCN central capabilities. 

Severity 1 Access

There is no requirement to notify the Service Co-ordinator of any Access Level incidents. Examples would include (confirmed) local power issues beyond the CNSPs boundary or isolated configuration issues for single sites.

Severity 2

There is no requirement to notify the Service Co-ordinator of severity 2 incidents. If an incident falls under the severity 2 criteria, then these should be managed between the CNSP and their consumers or other NSP’s. The only circumstance where this may differ is if you feel another NSP is not taking responsibility for meeting their incident management requirements (SMINC11).

Further guidance

There is no requirement to notify NHS Digital of single network events such as route flapping or network blips resulting in one or more consumers’ being isolated from the HSCN or Internet.

Irrespective of these guideline,  if you feel we should be aware of an incident or you require HSCN Authority support you can call this through to the NHS Digital Service Co-ordinator function (Service Bridge).

CNSPs should agree access level HSSI fix times with their consumers based on their requirements. The access level principles detailed in the severity definitions should be adhered to.

HSSI fix times are to be agreed with consumers as shown in this table.  

Enhanced

Standard

Reduced

The following MDS shall be used to raise and provide updates to the SC for HSSIs.

Engaging with Major NHS IT Service Providers – SMINC16

There may be some scenarios where it is beneficial to all parties for major ITSP’s to engage directly to assist and contribute with incident/problem diagnosis and resolution. This engagement will take place through the Service Co-ordinator raising a multi supplier intervention with the relevant CNSPs.

This obligation has been introduced with clinical application providers in mind who manage incidents on behalf of their users.

NHS Digital will engage with the National IT Service Provider as the first engagement to establish what information they have to indicate there is a network issue that requires direct engagement with CNSPs.

If the major ITSP provides sufficient information to NHS Digital to warrant further discussion amongst all parties then a call will be arranged by the Service Co-ordinator through the multi supplier intervention process (SMINC6).

The scope of the engagement between CNSPs and Major ITSPs is likely to be

• assistance with the diagnosis of HSSI’s
• incident communications/updates in relation to incidents the ITSP are engaged on
• confirmation of any incidents on the network likely to be impacting sites provided by the major ITSP

New HSSI

It is expected that the majority of Incidents will be raised by CN-SPs and will come from HSCN Consumers / their local service desks. However, other NSPs as well as the SC may also raise Incidents with CNSPs.

Once the NSP receives a call, from the CNSP or NSP's authorised consumer contact they shall review and confirm that it was not a local issue that caused the Incident. If the consumer site confirms there was a local issue the NSP is not required to report the incident to the SC. This shall be categorised as a local issue. Where it is established that there is no local issue, the NSP shall log relevant Severity Level 1 incidents through to the SC. The NSPs shall ensure that the relevant CN-SPs have sufficient information to communicate HSSI impacts and resolution forecasts out to their HSCN Consumers.
 

Until the HSSI is resolved the SC will be provided updates by NSPs.

HSSI Update Service Level: NSPs are obliged to update the SC until HSSI are resolved, every 60 minutes for all Severity Level 1 incidents.

Closure Process for HSSI

Upon the resolution and closure of Severity Level 1 HSSIs, the NSP shall provide a fully completed HSSI Report, to the SC within 10 days of the HSSI resolution. The SC will review the HSSI Report, ensuring that it complies with defined quality criteria. If the report does not comply it will be returned to the NSP for re-submission, this resubmission should occur within the following 24-hour period. Upon receipt of an accepted HSSI Report, the SC will store / record the information to be used to analyse HSSI incidents  with the intent to identify areas of opportunity or service improvements. 

HSCN Consumers will advise their NSP if they are reporting a Clinical Safety Incident using the below definition. NSPs should prioritise these incidents accordingly and work proactively with healthcare providers to resolve incidents impacting patient care.

The NHS Digital definition of a Clinical Safety Incident is: any unintended or unexpected incident which could have, or did, lead to harm for one or more patient’s receiving healthcare. Where harm is defined as: death, physical injury, psychological trauma and/or damage to the health or well-being of a patient.

The HSCN Supplier must recognise that their provisions support health and care services and as such must appreciate the safety requirements associated with Health IT as described in DCB standards (0129 and 0160)under Section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012,  published by the Data Coordination Board (DCB). 

HSCN suppliers must work proactively and collaboratively with such health and care service providers to resolve safety related incidents when they occur. 

Multi Supplier Intervention (MSI)

Any NSP can ask the SC to intervene in incidents where multiple suppliers are involved, and they have made every reasonable effort to resolve an Incident.