NHS BLOOD AND TRANSPLANT
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Date / title of
meeting
27 November 2014
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Title of paper
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Status
Donor Portal Self Service Version 2
(Efficiencies and Improvements)
Official and discloseable.
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Upgrade to donor portal to improve donor experience on our live
appointment portal providing increased functionality thereby
reducing cost of service.
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Executive
Summary
The donor portal was launched in November 2013 and is
transforming the way NHSBT manages its donors and
appointment bookings. Following the initial launch of the mobile
site, applications for iOS, Android and Windows Phone were
released in May 2014.
NHSBT Board Meeting
The original business case forecasted 150,000 registered users
in the first 12 months. However since the launch there have
been 460,000 donors sign-up on the portal and 81,000
downloads of the mobile apps resulting in over one million
transactions which otherwise would have taken place through
paid channels.
Within the next five years, we can expect at least 80% of donor
registrations will be self servicing.
NHSBT now needs to implement technical changes to the
current donor portal that will deliver more efficiencies and
greater capacity. Functionality must be improved based on
feedback from donors and staff in order to optimise the
migration from more expensive servicing channels.
An “Agile" methodology, now mandated by the Cabinet Office
will be adopted (see Appendix 1 for an overview of terminology)
to provide quicker delivery of donor focused features and priority
business requirements. Some Agile principles were tried and
tested in the first portal project, leading to a recent Cabinet
Office assessment passing the portal for 25 of its 26 digital
service standard criteria.
Specialist contractors Sapient/Nitro have been chosen as the
partner of choice.
Total project spend will be a maximum of £629,000 (all revenue)
and the Government Digital Services (GDS) have approved the
project. The benefits identified amount to £2.5m in total over six
years. The net benefit therefore is £1.87m over six years.
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Action
requested
Approval to proceed with upgrading donor portal 1 and to use
SapientNitro to build the improvements.
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Background
and customer
promise
The donor portal has only been operational for ten months and
the mobile apps five months, but it is already possible to see
improvements in a range of donor metrics (see below). These
will improve further as the efficiency and increased functionality
lead to greater sustained usage.
Identifiable metrics/results to date:




Attendance on session from portal donor registrants to
non portal donor registrants is 3% higher
New donor conversion from Jan-June 2014 is up 1.4%
compared to the same period last year
Inbound calls from March to June 2014 compared to the
same period last year are down 15%
Since the launch in November 2014 web administration
tasks have been reduced by up to 3000 a day
Financial benefits delivered are as follows:
Actual realised
(£000’s)
2013/14
Latest Forecast
(£000’s)
2014/15
Reduced costs supporting the
Government Gateway
17
22
Reduced costs making
discretionary calls
Reduced costs for re-keying of
web forms to register donors,
book appointments and change
details
Reduced costs for handling
incoming calls
20
36
162
600
58
251
38
66
120
127
415
1,102
Benefit Line
Reduced costs for sending
welcome packs
Reduced costs for
communicating to donors
Total
There have also been a range of non financial benefits linked to
enhanced donor satisfaction including examples of positive
reaction from social media, donor compliments and a 1200
donor survey conducted in July 2014.
There are also benefits for organisational reputation. The portal
is a major enabler to the stated government objective of
digitising its services and reducing the use of paper. This will be
explored further in the “Modern Paperless Donor Journey”
programme submission.
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Feedback from the GDS has been extremely positive and they
have indicated their desire for the system to become the first
major health exemplar.
The final financial benefits statement for donor portal 1
exceeded benefits highlighted in the original business case.
The donor portal version 2 project now requires approval to
enable further benefits to be crystallised. The project will
achieve this by delivering efficiencies to meet the increased
demand from donors. There will also be enhanced functionality
such as pushing alerts through the mobile apps and improved
session search, booking and user registration. Session booking
of donors captured at sessions by a staff member on a tablet
device will also be a feature.
Throughout the process the donor will be central to the
development and will be included at all stages. We have
already received substantial feedback from donors on system
improvements particularly in the registration and the search
facility.
As part of this process a range of developments (user journeys)
will be built based on donor research studies to ensure that not
only the correct upgrades to the system are taking place but
also that they will be appropriate for different donor segments.
The new donor portal features, improvements and
enhancements will be delivered in four releases planned
throughout the first half of 2015. Donors are likely to see
functional improvement starting in April 2015 and some
technical and business efficiencies will be delivered earlier.
During the project further research will be undertaken to
continually gain feedback on new features and functionality to
ensure donor expectations are met.
An Agile approach will be adopted (see Appendix 1 for an
overview of terminology) to provide quicker delivery of donor
focused features and priority business requirements. Some
Agile principles were tried and tested in the first portal project,
leading to a recent Cabinet Office assessment passing the
portal for 25 of its 26 digital service standard criteria. The
adoption of an Agile approach is mandated by the Cabinet
Office as part of its standards and tied to approval criteria.
The governance structure will include Clive Ronaldson (SRO),
Jon Latham (AE) and Tony Evans (Programme Manager) which
provides continuity from the first portal project.
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A procurement exercise has been undertaken using the
government framework, GCloud. From a short list of three
suppliers SapientNitro were chosen as the preferred supplier.
(These were the contractors used for the donor portal one build
process).
We will utilise specialist resource from SapientNitro to support
the internal teams with technical expertise. The team will be
approximately a 50/50 mix between internal and external
resource. The project will facilitate knowledge and skills transfer
from external experts.
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Why is this
important
 Ensuring long-term sufficiency of supply – By improving our
digital services further we will make it simpler for donor
registration. The upgrades will make it easier for donors to
transact with us and for us to engage with donors.
 Modernising collection sessions and the way we interact
and manage donors – This project will build upon the
blood.co.uk site and mobile apps to support targeted
campaigns to specific blood groups and improve further our
digital offering.
 Meeting donor’s expectation, improving session experience
and donor satisfaction – The scope of deliverables includes
improvements that have come directly from donor feedback
e.g. easier registration and session searching.
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Who else has
been involved
so far?
 GDS have approved the proposition/spend for donor portal
v2 and agree this is a very important service delivery
initiative and view this as an exemplar for Health.
 CPB-Blood Supply have approved the detailed business
case.
 TPB have approved a seed fund of £90,000 in order to start
the efficiency work prior to the Board approval.
 Blood Supply have ensured alignment to blood supply
strategy.
 Blood donors and NHSBT staff have provided positive
feedback via the service centre, social media channels and
via formal focus groups.
 The Executive Team have reviewed and approved this
business case.
 A procurement exercise has been undertaken using the
GCloud framework.
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10 Costs and
benefits
11 Significant
next Actions
The planned target dates below are based on the assumption
that the current proposed performance changes will stabilise the
portal by mid December and that the supplier can start work on
the efficiency changes in mid November.
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28th Nov 2014 - Initiation - Complete contracts.
23rd Jan 2015 - Discovery Phase – Confirm processes,
roles and approach and complete detailed prioritisation.
13th Feb 2015 - Release Zero – Setup, team ramp up,
automated testing and tooling.
20th Feb 2015 - Release One – Deliver priority
“efficiency” benefits to ensure performance of the
services and planned growth can be met.
10th Apr 2015 - Release Two – Iterative sprints to deliver
priority “Session Search and Booking” stories to address
key usability issues identified by our donors.
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
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12 How does this
impact on
Equality and
Diversity?
29th May 2015 - Release Three – Iterative sprints to
deliver priority “user registration” stories to address key
usability issues identified by our donors. We will also
migrate some content and web services.
17th Jul 2015- Release Four - Iterative Sprints to deliver
“administration” improvements and remaining stories to
address key usability issues identified by our donors.
14th Aug 2015 project close.
No Impact
A key deliverable for the project is to increase capacity further in
13 What is the
impact on
order to enable a channel shift and encourage more
sustainability? transactions.
There will be no disruption to the existing portal service during
this project.
There will be environmental sustainability impacts due to
reduced paper usage e.g. mail and invitations.
14 Employee
impact?
No Impact
15 Donor
impact?
The improved functionality usability of the site already detailed in
section seven above.
16 Taxpayer
impact?
Project is planned to deliver £2.55 m saving over a six year
period.
17 Author
Jon Latham - Assistant Director - Marketing and Donor Contact
Service mobile 0759035 (8) 2001
18 Responsible
Director
Clive Ronaldson - Director of Blood Supply
19 NED input
Roy Griffins and Louise Fullwood
20 Appendices
Appendix 1 included to provide further detail and Government
Digital Services design manual and a summary of “Agile”.
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