Eligibility, onboarding, kick-off and documentation

Before you can proceed with any of the features listed below, ensure you have completed onboarding for appointments as described in the guide for integrating a secondary care booking system with the NHS App. You may also need to have onboarded other APIs or services.

There are 2 types of features:

• Mandatory features
• Additional features

You can onboard these features in any order. However, you must commit to onboarding to all mandatory features before you can onboard to any additional ones.

Mandatory features:

• Notifications and Messaging (N&M)
• Documents

Additional features:

• Paperless Preferences
• Questionnaires
• Management Information

Notes:

As part of your integration you MUST be reporting on key metrics. This reporting MUST be extended for all features that you onboard with. This can be done through one of 2 available methods: 

• Method 1 - monthly reporting via manual submission 
• Method 2 - API integration (preferred) 

More about Management Information reporting.

To qualify, a secondary care booking system must support at least 1 eligible NHS trust that is live with the minimum viable product (MVP). Each time you enhance your product by adding additional features, eligible trusts using your system must confirm that they meet the necessary compliance requirements to go live.

We require written confirmation from each connecting trust that the new feature has been assessed against the categories listed in the table below:

If a trust requires assistance, they can contact our deployment team at [email protected] 

To integrate, you must meet these general onboarding criteria for all features:

• Meet the requirements outlined in the System Requirement Specification (SRS).
• You have previously onboarded to the Appointments feature, which is live with at least 1 of your connected trusts.
• Uplift previously onboarded features to the latest version of the SRS requirements, including Figmas, and any technical debt established in Live Service problem records created from previous feature onboardings.
• Meet the specific criteria for the feature you are onboarding to, as detailed below.

Once you are ready to start onboarding, submit a change request through our portal, specifying the feature you wish to add. For assistance with using the portal, please follow our guidance.

The Partner Onboarding Team will check your eligibility and then contact you to arrange a kick-off session. In this session, we will introduce you to the stakeholders who will support you throughout the onboarding and assurance process. During the kick-off session, we will confirm:

1. The version of documentation you will use, including functional and non-functional requirements, design files, and business rules.
2. The scope of the requirements you are working towards, including any deviations from the standard requirements.
3. A collaborative review of your technical architecture to ensure compliance when integrating with new features.
4. Answers to any queries you may have about the onboarding process, documentation, or technical aspects.

After the kick-off session, please liaise with your Partner Onboarding Team lead to:

• Agree on a delivery plan for each step of the assurance process.
• Schedule weekly check-in calls for key updates and progress.
• Determine and set up your day-to-day collaboration tool for communications with the programme. There is a preference within the programme to use Slack so it is strongly encourage you use this tool.

Throughout the onboarding process, you will be required to complete a Supplier Conformance Assessment List (SCAL). This will be done using either an Excel document or the Digital Onboarding Service (DOS). The Partner Onboarding Team will advise which SCAL format to use.

The SCAL gathers all requirements and risk controls necessary for a partner to interface with features, along with the evidence needed for the technical conformance process. It captures partner declarations and records how your product meets technical, information governance (IG), security, and clinical safety requirements within technical and business contexts. The SCAL also allows for cross-referencing or indexing additional risk controls, such as extra clinical testing or deployment verification periods.

The specific SCAL requirements for each feature are detailed below and will be further explained by the Partner Onboarding Team:

At the end of the onboarding process, all elements of the SCAL must be approved before a decision to allow live data to flow can be made.