Product Management on the NHS App - an insider look

What’s your career background prior to joining Kainos?

I started out in my career as a developer, after graduating with a degree in Computer Science. My career path shifted into product via Business Analysis. Back then this was a more generalist role so I got to sample a really broad range of career options within the industry before settling in product for the long haul.

Before joining Kainos, I worked for an international technology consultancy for 12 years. During this time, I worked on a range of projects for mostly public sector clients in the UK, Middle East and India – border control, law enforcement, retail logistics, lots of counter-fraud and urban transport, you name it. Then I contracted for one of the biggest gaming companies in the world for a few years before moving to Yorkshire with my young family and joining Kainos. I’ve been here for four years now.

What are some of the key features of the app and your team’s work on it over the last 18 months?

The app is used for a number of services. Quite a lot of them are GP related, so things like booking GP appointments, doing online consultations, ordering repeat prescriptions, and viewing GP medical record. But what we've basically done over the last couple of years is create a pattern for integrating third party services - so the COVID Status pass is obviously the one that's kind of massively driven uptake. Other great services in there include organ donation preference, you can tell the NHS how you want your data to be used.

We’ve scaled the app from 3 million users in March to 19 million and counting. Back in 2017, we couldn’t have anticipated what was to come, and I’m so proud to have been involved in such an important and empowering project – allowing users to get access to health services remotely at a time when it really took the pressure off GP practices and the wider NHS.

Right now, the team are focused on building out the app’s inbuilt messaging and push notifications capability to reduce patient communications via expensive and insecure methods.

Tell us about an interesting challenge that you overcame on the project.

I’d say we adapted really quickly to remote working. Previously we had a lot of the team travelling every week to customer site, now on the project we’ve realised we can be very effective from home which is great. We’re working remotely since March 2020, now the odd day in the office. We’re building out our team here in Yorkshire too, which means lots of new faces to meet and greet, and hopefully many more to onboard to the team.

What’s been the most meaningful thing about working on this project?

For me there are a lot of things on this project that stand out to me as meaningful.

We have recorded such overwhelmingly positive user feedback which is the main thing. I thoroughly enjoyed observing the user research too and developing a really close working relationship with NHS Digital. It’s all been an unforgettable experience.

The work we did whilst I was interim Head of Product positioned us well for scaling up the NHS App. We’ve seized a great opportunity as a result of the ‘digital legacy’ – we now need to completely change our thinking and strategy, pivoting from uptake to user engagement and retention - convincing users to keep the app installed by adding value and making things easier for them to engage with their health services, when the COVID Status pass eventually becomes less relevant.

What are you most proud of through your time working on this project?

I’m really proud of the team, and how we’ve continued to deliver a huge array of enhancements, new features and massive scalability to the app during the pandemic – often against very challenging deadlines, entirely remotely, many people never having met in person and with all the challenges of home working - and schooling (as I know all too well with two under-fives!) The whole delivery has been a real credit to Kainos, our partner BJSS, and NHS Digital.

Personally speaking, it was integrating the first Public Health record data on the ‘Patients Know Best’ pilot into the NHS App in only three months – allowing access to hospital and social care records in some areas of England, improvements to the user identity verification process making this less of barrier to uptake and saving a lot of money at the same time.  The recent work we’ve been doing about broadening the use of the app’s notifications and messaging capability – taking a hypothesis and hopefully turning it into a means of reducing and improving the timeliness of patient communications costs whilst making it a better, more secure user experience.

What was it about Kainos that first attracted you and what keeps you here?

When I joined Kainos, initially I was a contractor before making the leap to permanent. I knew a few former colleagues who had gone to Kainos and they all gave it rave reviews.

Overall, Kainos is a genuinely nice company to work for and the leadership team are grounded, transparent about strategy and clearly really care about the staff.  The community of people that Kainos has built is top notch - their agile mindsets and deep technical expertise is present in every team I’ve worked with. Kainos’ reputation with our customers is unparalleled. There is a big focus for sustainability, diversity and inclusion too, which is great to see being put into practice and not just words on a page. 

The projects I’ve been placed on since joining have been really interesting, and more importantly, really worthwhile. I have a lot of freedom here too, where I shape projects and work, and really personally have an impact on services that are delivered for citizens – being able to feel that sense of satisfaction that something I’ve done has made a difference, is amazing.

If you want to know more about our team in Leeds or roles in Product that really make a difference around the UK, find out more on our careers site.