Healthy Living for people with type 2 diabetes beta reassessment
This is the beta reassessment report for the Healthy Living for people with type 2 diabetes service, from August to September 2021
Digital Service Standard reassessment report
Healthy Living for people with type 2 diabetes
| From: | CDDO |
| Reassessment date: | August/ September 2021 |
| Stage: | Beta |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | NHS England/ NHS Improvements |
Previous assessment reports
Service description
Healthy Living is an online programme for adults with type 2 diabetes. It provides information and tools for users to self-manage their condition. The content incorporated in the programme has been evidenced to achieve improved health outcomes through a randomised control trial.
The programme is designed to improve the user’s knowledge and skills, as well as helping to motivate them to take control of their condition and self-manage it effectively, tailoring content to user needs.
Service users
- Primary users: Adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes
-
Secondary users:
- Carers/relatives of people living with type 2 diabetes
- Health care professionals
3. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service Met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- a content designer was contracted to review the original content to update the language and content to be more accessible, user-friendly and easily understood
- the team has profiled the cost for a full time content designer. The programme has sufficient funding (subject to spend control approvals) to bring a content designer into the team should it be appropriate to develop the content further. There is commitment from the programme sponsor (NHSE) to fund this position
- the team has scoped the cost and delivery requirements for this appointment, which is available if they should need it in the future. This includes a commitment that the role would contribute to the design community to ensure sharing best practice
- the product team has conducted an audit of content to ensure that the content has been aligned to NHS style and content guidelines, to ensure clear, consistent and easily digestible copy is available
-
a decision on appointing a content designer is subject to the following activities happening beforehand:
- licencing discussions that would allow additional changes
- scoping activity that confirms that translation and cultural adaptation of the programme content is the appropriate option for service users
What the team needs to explore
If no further content is being added or iterated, pending scoping for translation and cultural adaption, it’s not necessary to bring in a full-time content designer at this stage. However, we recommend that before their next assessment, the team needs to:
-
bring in a content designer on a contract basis to review content changes since the last content review, including changes to navigation, tools or functionality, to take part in user testing and to iterate as necessary and to proofread existing content, including:
- use of ALL CAPS (including in terms and conditions)
- heading structure (some headings are not nested appropriately)
- for inconsistencies (for example variation in capitalising type/Type 2) and for typos (some spotted in navigation or page titles, not in the reading material)
- transcripts and captions as these are developed
-
employ a content designer to review the content, take part in user testing and iterate as necessary if the project develops further content, for example, after scoping for cultural adaptation
It should be possible for a content designer to remain faithful to the original evidenced content and to achieve the same outcomes, while making sure that content is accurate and easy to read and understand.
8. Make all new source code open
Decision
The service met point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has identified a number of areas they will open source
12: Make sure users succeed first time
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service has now had an external accessibility audit which covers existing and new functionality. All issues found have been fixed and the service has been accredited as WCAG 2.1 AA compliant
13. Make the user experience consistent with GOV.UK
Decision
The service met point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has carried out a number of content improvements and has plans in place for further content work during public beta
- the team has engaged with the NHS design system and made a number of changes to bring the service into better alignment with the GOV.UK and NHS design systems
What the team needs to explore
In the near future, the team needs to:
- fix an outstanding issue, which is the issue of appropriate and nested headings. The team says that they have fixed the platform-wide heading structure issues, and technically what they have done should pass automated testing. However, it is still problematic from a design and content point of view and may still cause accessibility issues. Each page title (H1) should be unique and it should describe the content the user sees on the page and the rest of the content should be structured under headings at different levels (H2, H3 and so on). The team has considered the issues and found a way to address them
Because the platform does not use the NHS frontend, the team may face ongoing challenges meeting usability and accessibility requirements.
15. Collect performance data
Decision
The service met point 15 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has a full time performance analyst
- the team is collecting performance data and storing it to allow for analysis
- the team is collecting consent to collect data on performance
16. Identify performance indicators
Decision
The service met point 16 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has clear outcomes that they want to improve for patients in the long term
- the team has a detailed performance framework that links their measures to their overall goals and user needs
- the team is measuring their iterations and showing how each has performed compared to the hypothesised expectation
- the team has a clear plan of action following their iterations based on the outcome of their measurement plans
- the team’s measures of iterations are able to be linked clearly back to their performance framework and the goals of their service.
- the team is working closely with UR to join quantitative and qualitative data together in making their decisions
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to use the performance framework in measuring their iterations
- consider how measures might change as the service moves from beta towards live