Open-source Proposal
for the NHS

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Public Money, Public Code is a community dedicated to improving software systems in the NHS through greater collaboration. That means YOU!

It is an open community in every sense. We want YOU to be board members, to advise, to share, to contribute code, to review the accounts, even build this proposal!

Come and get involved. Be a part of The Rebel Alliance. It doesn't matter if you're a competitor to SARD JV, a software hacker, a clinician, doctor, nurse, informatician, concerned citizen. This is a team effort. And we have a warm embrace for everybody who shares our mission.

NHS technology has been floundering in broken, proprietary systems for too long. Up and down the UK, there are bright, enthusiastic, talented people like you, who want to make our NHS run better. This is a focal point to make that happen.

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Graffiti Wall!

Make a simple open-source contribution in 2 minutes!

First, don't worry! You can't break anything. We promise.

You can contribute to open-source code right now! Come and write something on our Graffiti Wall and show your support for Public Money, Public Code. Whatever your level of technical literacy, you can do it and takes 2 minutes.

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  1. Create a free account on Github or login
  2. Once logged in, go to this page to edit the Graffiti html
  3. This will create a fork! Don't worry about it. That's good. 👍 If it doesn't, hit the 'create fork' button
  4. Now you are editing the file! Duplicate the last line in the file by copy and pasting it. It should look something like this...
    <p>&#127793; The Last Name &#127793;</p>
    That's HTML code.
  5. Change the name in the newly pasted line to your name.
  6. Hit the 'Propose changes' button.
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  9. You're done. And you've contributed to open-source!

What happens now

We - the maintainers of the project - will be notified by email. We'll check your "pull request" and assuming it's all OK we'll merge it into the main source code. Cogs will whurrrr. And a few minutes later, your name will be on this very website! Congratulations!!

If you're feeling brave then play around with different HTML emojis, images, videos or anything else you like. Don't worry, we'll check it before we merge it into the main website.

Introducing our open sourcerers...

🌱 HarvsG thinks this a great idea

🌱 Kevin Monk 🌱 woz ere.

🌱 Andy Sandford and Tigger #TUFC 🌱 woz ere.

🌱 Jane Sharville 🌱

🌱 Alistair Cannon 🌱 Y2k21 👍

🌱 RobL 🌱 gone done dids a thing

🌱 Nigel Bedayse 🌱 in da house!

🌱 Marcus Baw yay open source! 🌱

🌱 Francesca Monk 🌱 open source noob 👍

🌱 Benjamin Monk 🌱 aged 10 🎢🎢🎢🎧🎧🎧🎮🎮🎮my scratch

🌱 McDonald Joe 🌱 aged 59 🎢🎢🎢🎧🎧🎧🎮🎮🎮

🌱 Christy Hinchliffe 🌱 Aged. Even I can do it. 👍

🌱 Rhidian Bramley 🌱 Baby steps. Keep it simple. 👍

🌱 Clive Spindley 🌱 give ALL PEOPLE ACCESS & CONTROL OF ALL THEIR NATIONAL H&SC DATA! 👍

🌱 Farley J. Fonebone 🌱 So far, So good! 👍

🌱 Steve Carratt 🌱 Great idea, I hope it takes off 🚀

🌱 Mariah Young 🌱 Woot! 🚀

🌱 Michelle Kearns 🦄 Woo! Finally! #Opensauced. 🦄

🌱 One HealthTech Ireland 🌞 Give it a go! #OHT21 🦄

Executive summary

This document proposes the formation of a company to promote, develop and maintain an open-source workforce platform. It is submitted by an alliance of experienced professionals from across the NHS Tech community; assembled by SARD JV Ltd -- a workforce software company, part owned by Oxleas NHS FT.

Since its inception in 2018, Matt Hancock's Tech Vision has been widely admired but NHSX has been understandably preoccupied by Covid-19. This proposal is a practical plan to execute the initial delivery of that vision to create the most advanced open-source health and care system in the world, beginning with workforce software.

Every individual we have shared this with has been ignited by the concept and the possibility it holds to bring the Tech Vision into tech reality.

This community seeks £5 million in funding from NHSX in order to:

  • Set up the company (CIC or Ltd. Joint Venture)
  • Migrate existing open-source systems: ESR API Wrapper and Murfin+ to the company
  • Donate and migrate SARD’s eRostering system to open-source software
  • Develop a Staff Master Index system with University College London Hospital (UCLH), Oxleas NHS FT, and Torbay and South Devon NHS FT

The benefits of achieving this include:

  • Eradication of monopoly domination, vendor lock-in and associated price inflation.
  • Accountability for the spend of public money.
  • Creation of an environment that cultivates innovation.
  • Replacing outdated systems.
  • Interoperability.
  • Utilising in-house NHS expertise and collaboration.
  • Lowers the barriers to entry for SMEs.
  • Promulgates individual NHS Trust successes across the wider community.

The core principles of Public Money Public Code are:

  • To promote all forms of transparency and openness: management, accounts and code.
  • To be self-sustaining and independent.
  • To maintain democratic governance eg. elected board and term limits.

This proposal is supported by the following lead proposers:

  • Professor Joe McDonald — Founding Director of The Great North Care Record and Consultant Psychiatrist
  • SARD JV Ltd cofounders — an NHS owned workforce software provider
  • Dr Marcus Baw - GP, Emergency Physician and Software Developer - Lead Dev for RCPCH Growth Charts API
  • Rob Dyke - Cofounder of Open e-Obs and NHoS

We have discussed the proposal with the following people and they have indicated their support:

  • Terence Eden — open-source advocate, Senior Technology Policy Advisor at GDS
  • Simon Wardley — Advisor, Leading Edge Forum. Co-Chair of OSCON
  • Professor Margunn Aanestad - Professor at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
  • Rachel Murphy - CEO at BeDifrent
  • Liam Maxwell - first CTO of Government Digital Service, Director, Government Transformation at Amazon Web Services
  • Simon Clifford - Director of Digital & Data, The Police ICT
  • Simon Knight - Director of Planning and Performance, UCLH
  • Tom Bartlett - Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust Business Informatics Lead
  • Andrew Sandford - Lean and Agile public sector process design consultant

The company will be membership based and self sustaining, building a community around open values and transparency and promoting open-source software within the healthcare workforce sector. It will be overseen by an Executive Board and a Steering group (with Chair) to guide the movement forward and expand its offering.

This is a huge opportunity not only to radically improve software and the technical environment within the NHS Workforce sector, but also to demonstrate best practice and establish a blueprint to be applied across all areas of healthcare tech in the future.

Workforce systems provide the perfect starting point as they are subject to less regulation and enjoy more freedom to apply innovative and efficient solutions at relatively low costs. Capitalising on these benefits will have an enormous financial impact.

Our full-costed plan describes the tools, resources and approach required to successfully implement the Tech Vision across the NHS Workforce.

Context

The Tech Vision

In October 2018, Matt Hancock launched a Tech Vision “to build the most advanced health and care system in the world” where “outdated and obstructive NHS IT systems will become a thing of the past.”

The vision describes that the “state of online services, basic IT and clinical tools in health and care is far behind where it needs to be”, and that, “We need to take a radical new approach to technology across the system and stop the narrative that it’s too difficult to do it right in health and care”.

Ambitiously the Tech Vision outlined that, “The UK has the chance to lead the world on healthtech. We have the opportunity to build

an ecosystem that continually creates the best healthtech – technology that can be exported, alongside new methods and insights that can contribute to health outcomes globally”.

We love this vision. The NHS community loves this vision. Technologists love this vision.

Even visions that get universal buy-in have a gap between intent and execution. Often that gap means the difference between a vision achieved and a vision unrealised.

What Works and What Doesn’t

We don’t want to dwell on the past, but we do want to learn from past mistakes and follow a roadmap dedicated to executing this vision and making it a success; a legacy for all involved. The future of this vision will be defined by the execution path taken:

Path 1
Big Design up front
Path 2
Design for Emergence
Centrally Led Partnership working
Specification Driven Dealing with practical and tangible system development
Informed by current stakeholder companies User led development
Top Down planning Open
Bottom Up development

Based on tangible evidence, there can only be one path to success. Professor Margunn Aanestad from the University of Oslo studied this very concept and established that design for emergence and cultivation was the most effective route to achieving real and long lasting change with concrete benefits.

Professor Aanestad focused on implementation strategies, specifically for large interoperable networks. She found that large, centrally managed projects with up front design failed. However, iterative development and gradual expansion reduced overall complexity and led to on demand growth. Results were immediate, and the development which was cultivated became the national standard.

NHSI Workforce Deployment Systems Project

Over the last two years The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has committed £26 million capital funding to accelerate NHS providers’ use of workforce deployment systems, £19 million was allocated in 19/20 followed by a further £7.5 million in 20/21. During the first round trusts were encouraged to bid for innovation projects. However out of approximately 50 grants applications only 12 were awarded innovation funding which is less than 25% of the total allocated funds. The second round of funding has seen nearly the full amount of funding being spent within a single supplier. Although well intentioned, this approach has served to further move away from the Tech Vision, and further strengthen the stranglehold by investing almost solely in a single solution.

In 2019 NHSI introduced its levels of attainment for eRostering and Job Planning after it found that only 43% of trusts had systems in place. As part of the process, stakeholders were invited to define how systems should link and share information. The two mains goals were to increase the use of systems across trusts and to work towards their interoperability. Increasing system coverage across the NHS is important, however encouraging trusts to use ‘outdated and obstructive systems’ (as highlighted in the Tech Vision), will lead to long term contracts and vendor lock-in. The second goal - interoperability - called for interfaces that would sit between systems that required definition by a centrally coordinated authority and relied heavily on the capability of current systems in the marketplace. A far more elegant and effective method for interoperability is the use of an Application Programming Interface (API). See ‘API Design’ for more details

The Proposers

SARD JV

SARD JV was born out of the NHS and is still part owned by it. We’ve been hugely successful in our almost decade long history. It’s the classic David and Goliath software story. We started in a garage and took on all adversaries including crushing a FTSE200 company in our primary field. Today, SARD JV provides workforce tech to 70% of The Shelford Group: UCLH, Sheffield, Guy’s and St Thomas’, Kings’ College, Oxford University Hospitals, Newcastle, and Manchester.

We’re the poster child of what the NHS tech community wants software to be:

  • Lean and agile
  • Transparent, with open APIs on every product
  • Values-aligned
  • Customer service-focused
  • 96% client retention
  • User-led by a reliable chat support system trusted for 10 years

We have thrived by placing the majority of the Execution Essentials described below at the heart of how we operate and by focusing on two core pillars, great technology and great customer service. Our clients trust us, and as such have asked us for years to extend our offering, build new modules and challenge the status quo. As a bootstrap funded company, who focus on partnership working with real integrity, this process can take time.

Despite everything we have to offer, we’re in a horrible position and we know we are not alone. A hostile, polluted environment unintentionally selects against companies like ours.

We refuse to let this failing culture choke the Tech Vision and our future. We can do what it takes to get free from locked-in proprietary systems and give new life to the vision. This requires a radical move. A destabilisation manoeuvre, that we are fully prepared to undertake on our own, but understand fully that with your support the impact would be bigger, faster and with a greater chance of success.

Building a community demonstrates our intentions are not focused on the success of our company or indeed becoming the next monopoly, but rather, developing an environment where tech companies current and future have the ability to thrive and innovate. We would rather make our dent on the universe than eat the world. We believe in systems that provide real value for money, are accessible to all and can be readily built upon locally by healthcare providers to suit their individual requirements. An ecosystem that allows for interoperability and where customers get the choice of best of breed rather than long term vendor lock in.

The wider community

Over the last 6 months a community has been brought together across a wide spectrum of NHS Health tech open-source advocates. A single focus to help improve the environment in which tech companies can engage and flourish for the benefit ultimately of the NHS and other Healthcare providers. SARD JV have co-ordinated an effort to bring people together for a common cause. Upon outlining our approach, more and more have joined the community and a movement has begun. A passion for change has been reignited, developing an open-source platform and a wider community to support it.

So far this proposal is supported by:

  • Professor Joe McDonald - Founding Director of The Great North Care Record and Consultant Psychiatrist
  • SARD JV Ltd cofounders - an NHS owned workforce software provider
  • Terence Eden - open-source advocate, Senior Technology Policy Advisor at GDS
  • Simon Wardley - Advisor, Leading Edge Forum. Co-Chair of OSCON
  • Dr Marcus Baw - GP, Emergency Physician and Software Developer - Lead Dev for RCPCH Growth Charts API
  • Rob Dyke - Cofounder of Open e-Obs and NHoS
  • Simon Knight - Director of Planning and Performance, UCLH
  • Tom Bartlett - Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust Business Informatics Lead
  • Andrew Sandford - Lean and Agile public sector process design consultant

We have also discussed this approach and received a positive response from

  • Professor Margunn Aanestad - Professor at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
  • Rachel Murphy - CEO at BeDifrent
  • Liam Maxwell - first CTO of Government Digital Service, Director, Government Transformation at Amazon Web Services
  • Simon Clifford - Director of Digital & Data, The Police ICT

This community reflects years of experience working in and around health tech. They represent individuals working within trusts, clinical and workforce based, companies delivering workforce solutions and individuals working within the public sector. The general consensus is that the NHS workforce is a perfect sector to prove the concept of open-source and to grow an open ecosystem that will deliver the much admired Tech Vision.

Our Proposal

To set up a self sustaining company as a vehicle to promote and implement open-source workforce solutions for the NHS and other Health Care Providers. To continue to grow a community committed to developing an open ecosystem. Gift and develop four open-source workforce Solutions to the company.

The Company

We will set up Public Money, Public Code and provide the following:

  • A written Constitution
  • Legal frameworks
  • Community benefit statement
  • Executive Board
  • Steering Group with Chair
  • Membership structures, options and Fees
  • Periodic reporting

The company will act as a vehicle to promote / build an ecosystem / access to code.

Community

Over a number of months, we have been building a community, a wide cross section of open-source advocates within NHS Tech. The aim of this community is the realisation of the 2018 Tech Vision. This project will look to both grow the community and build a sustainable membership base to ensure sustainability of the company. The community will be able to contribute to the success of the Public Money, Public Code in a number of ways including:

  • Providers contributing systems to the company
  • Help steer and guide the company
  • Elect member of the board.
  • Maintain code and additional commits.

This project will ensure further growth of this community, to pull in more companies willing to contribute further to the company.

Open-source systems

SARD JV are proposing to move four workforce systems into the company. Two of which are developed, one that needs converting and one that is in development. Each of these is outlined below.

System Brief Description Required Action Offer
ESR API Wrapper ESR data can be accessed through a user interface which is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. This allows the user to find the information they require in a matter of minutes if not seconds. Ensure all code and documentation is accessible for implementation. Migrate to the company.
Murfin+ SARD’s Murfin+ system reviews the job plans that the trust has created and compares that to the reality of direct clinical care. This allows for a better understanding of what is happening in real time, so service managers are able to identify overload, recruitment needs and reassign efforts to improve delivery. Ensure all code and documentation is accessible for implementation. Migrate to the company.
eRostering SARD eRostering is a powerful, AI-driven self-rostering system that analyses the information that you enter and calculates the optimum roster to most efficiently meet the needs of each individual and the workload of the trust. Convert code to open-source. Compile full documentation and structures required. Ensure all code and documentation is accessible for implementation. Once converted this will be migrated to the company.
Staff Master Index The Staff Master Index, will act to create a core reference point for staff and their relationship to the trust, and deliver an accurate database for easily accessible information. Develop a Staff Master Index in partnership with UCLH / Oxleas and Torbay and South Devon. Compile full documentation and structures required. Ensure all code and documentation is accessible for implementation. Once developed this will be migrated to the company.

Funding required

The community seeks £5 million in funding to deliver the set-up, promotion and migration of concrete systems into the company, utilising the Execution Essentials set out below. After the initial period of funding, we have set out a model to ensure the self sustainability of the company and for its growth. All funding is budgeted and an initial project plan is in place. We have also built a forecasting model for membership.

The 37 Execution Essentials

After thorough research, the execution essentials are a distillation of the attributes needed for the successful execution of a technical vision. Conversely, projects that have failed were conspicuously missing these components. A more detailed description of each element is contained in the attached appendix.

It draws on the following source materials:

Phases and Costing

There are four key phases. These will be delivered within 24 months of the project going live.

  1. Found the company
  2. ESR API Wrapper and Murfin+ migration
  3. Migrate SARD’s eRostering platform to the company
  4. Develop a “Staff Master Index” platform within the company

In order to achieve the above deliverables we have outlined the required costing in our top level costing document. Please see Execution Plan Costing for full details

Phase 1. Found the company

Total Budget: £676,000.00

Actions:

  • Administrative setup of the company e.g. fees, administration costs and legal documents
  • Establishment of the company Constitution
  • Establishment of the company Executive Board
  • Executive Directors remuneration
  • Membership Structure and Steering Group
  • Events / Promotion and Reports
  • Ongoing administration of the company

Phase 2. ESR API Wrapper & Murfin +

No additional budget required. The source code for these projects is currently managed and maintained by SARD JV.

Actions:

  • Migrate the two NHSI open-source projects to the company
  • Ensure all code and documentation is accessible for implementation

Phase 3. eRostering

Total Budget: £2,127,000.00

Actions / Requirements:

  • Project management
  • Operation research - AI tech
  • Administrative setup of the company e.g. fees, administration costs and legal documents
  • Front end development - UX/ Figma and CSS
  • Back end development and documentation (Ruby, Python)
  • Function testing
  • Security and penetration testing
  • System analysis - client focused
  • Marketing / awareness / promotion
  • Sales
  • Support
  • Operations management
  • Contingency

Phase 4. Staff Master Index

Total Budget: £2,197,000.00

Actions / Requirements:

  • Discovery (Project Analysis)
  • Project Management
  • Operation Research - AI Tech
  • Partnership building - Funding Developers within the NHS
  • Front end development - UX/Figma and CSS
  • Back end development and documentation (Ruby, Python)
  • Function Testing
  • Security and Penetration Testing
  • System Analysis - Client focussed
  • Marketing / Awareness / Promotion
  • Sales
  • Support
  • Operations Management
  • Contingency

Total Project Budget

Total Spend: £5,000,000.00

The accounts for the company will be fully open and published on the company website. NHSX and the public will be able to track where the funding has been spent and on what. The project will take up to 24 months to deliver all aspects, some phases will be completed in shorter timescales.

Project Plan

The funding for the above project is based on a 24-month delivery programme. The resource requirements have already been identified and the budget allocation in place. The 24-month period would start at project initiation and is for the time required for SARD’s actions. Timescales not included are those dependent on partners.

Appendix 1: Open-source products

Existing

In 2020, there were two open-source products developed by SARD in partnership with Oxleas NHS FT and funded by NHS Improvement:

  • ESR Wrapper API - an application to parse and wrap the nightly ESR CSV data from an FTP server and represent it in a modern Open API Specification aka. Swagger. This product has already been adopted by UCLH, and Torbay and South Devon, who both independently contacted SARD requiring its use in a Staff Master Index project.
  • Murfin+ - an application that allows a trust to review the current job plans and compare that to the reality of direct clinical care. The core aim is to allow service managers to understand pressure points either for recruitment or redeployment of resources.

They are currently housed and maintained by SARD in their Github repositories and released under an MIT licence. The company should house these assets because they:

  • become Independent of SARD
  • are natural ancillary products to eRostering and the Staff Master Index
  • Make it easier for non-SARD clients and her competitors to contribute

ESR Wrapper API

SARD ESR Wrapper API is an open-source product developed by SARD in partnership with Oxleas NHS FT and funded by NHS England and NHS Improvement.

Electronic Staff Record (ESR) is an incredibly important part of the NHS and holds details of all staff within the organisation. There has historically been much scope to improve the way data can be accessed from ESR to ensure it can be used in a useful way.

API stands for Application Programming Interface which is a way to define interactions between multiple software programmes. An easy way to think about an API is when you type into a search engine, once you hit enter, the search engine uses multiple APIs throughout the internet to find the answer - at an incredibly rapid speed.

Through the ESR Wrapper API, ESR data can be accessed through a user interface which is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. This allows the user to find the information they require in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

Open-source means this facility is now available to everyone for free and all users can benefit. There is no access charge.

  • Access information easily and efficiently
  • Multi-level data security (only enable access to the data needed)
  • Easy-to-navigate user interface, developed with the user in mind
  • Community-driven and open-source project that will continue to evolve and grow

Murfin+

SARD’s Murfin+ system reviews the job plans that the trust has created and compares that to the reality of direct clinical care. This allows for a better understanding of what is happening in real time, so service managers are able to identify overload, recruitment needs and reassign efforts to improve delivery.

Why

Created in partnership with Oxleas and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS FTs, Murfin+ has been developed to create better job planning accuracy, leading to greater understanding of how work is being delivered within a trust, with the ultimate goal of improving patient experience and outcomes.

Three principles

  1. Non-onerous: using existing data, Murfin+ uses what’s already available without extra administrative input.
  2. Patient-centred design: aiding leadership decisions based on improving patient experience.
  3. Detection: Murfin+ makes no attempt to diagnose a root cause, but displays any discrepancies in order to prompt discussion on what changes or improvements may be needed.

How

The system compares the expected output of direct clinical care based upon a service’s job plans with actual outcomes. The tool reports inconsistencies between the two and calls for action. This system is not designed to be a performance management tool but reduces the gap between expected and actual clinical care by improving the data quality of job plans.

For development and migration

Staff Master Index

The execution essential: “User led: Build The One Thing” states that we should:

“focus on a clear and unambiguously recognised problem for users”

An accurate database of the relations between staff is a common and persistent problem across the NHS. There is evidenced in the following places:

  • Trusts interested in, or implementing, the ESR Wrapper API have been using it to create a Staff Master Index. Those trusts are
    • UCLH
    • Oxleas NHS FT
    • Torbay and South Devon NHS FT
    • Birmingham Community
  • The lack of a core staff reference point is a common problem at The Supplier Reference Group meetings of NHSI’s Workforce Deployment System Project.
  • SARD’s experience over the last 10 years has found that trusts regularly restructure their organisational data. Often this is a redefining of the hierarchy of a tree structure rather than a fundamental change in the data itself. To give a recent example, Manchester Foundation Trust have swapped Hospitals and recently restructured all their organisational groups. We are in the process of organising this for them on SARD, making sure our system reflects their new organisational structure.

At UCLH, the Staff Master Index (SMI) is designed to tackle the problem that they cannot reliably identify the same member of staff on different IT systems. This makes it very time consuming to pass important information between the systems, for example when managing new members of staff, managing the exit process for staff, or simply trying to keep a person’s details accurate. The Staff Master Index becomes the master list for all people who provide services at UCLH in a non-patient, non-carer capacity.

For each system that subscribes to the SMI a list of the following is generated:

  • new members of staff that need to be added to their system;
  • staff records where information is not consistent with more trusted systems.

UCLH are currently exploring how they can automatically generate default requirements for new UCLH starters for information such as Epic access, Epic training and mandatory training. This is dependent upon a fully functioning Staff Master Index.

So far UCLH have:

  • Built, imported and automated matching routines that cover the following systems: ESR; Active Directory; Epic (user details); E-roster; Bank; C-CURE (door security system).
  • Carried out manual matches on around 3000 records where an automated match couldn’t safely be made.
  • Placed 23,000 unique records on the SMI where the record is on more than one system.
  • Proposed the preferred systems for each data item when populating the SMI. ESR is the principal source of information wherever it holds a record for a person.

Key next steps for UCLH:

  • Establish daily or weekly updates to the SMI from the participating systems. Aiming for this to be in place for ESR and Active Directory in early November.
  • Investigate the processes and data quality for the participating systems. The outputs from the matching routines (see appendix A) show that we need to do more to understand the data and processes in each participating system.

Similar projects exist within at least four more hospitals known to SARD JV. Andy Sandford from We Are Lean and Agile - a business process improvement company - has noticed a similar need for organisational discovery tools in local government.

The company seeks to bring together the best of these projects into an open-source application. Accurate and reliable staff data is a key challenge facing public sector organisations across the globe. This project will alleviate that issue.

For conversion and migration

eRostering

SARD eRostering is a powerful, AI-driven self-rostering system that analyses the information you enter and calculates the optimum roster to most efficiently meet the needs of each individual and the workload of the trust.

eRostering is able to handle and assimilate any number of your chosen parameters, from consecutive shift restrictions, leave and sickness and Working Time Directive factors to which team members work best together and the personal preferences or prior commitments of each user.

Users can see at a glance when they’re working, and when and where their colleagues are rostered. They can also request to swap shifts with colleagues from within the system.

Our system can be used for all work groups – consultants, junior doctors, nurses and all other staff can benefit from the smarter rosters and better work-life balance SARD offers. Regardless of the job role, it can be used in any environment including both acute and community care.

Furthermore, this system goes beyond just employee rostering and can help meet other administrative needs such as locating equipment, bed allocations, theatres etc.

eRostering removes the complicated maths from the process, giving administrators time to focus on what they want their rosters to achieve, not how to make them work, saving time and money and contributing to a happier workforce with a better work-life balance.

  • Facility to build, edit and approve rosters before they are made live to all users
  • The right people in the right place, with the right skills at the right time
  • Smart self-rostering that can outperform any manual analysis and calculation
  • Safe staffing levels
  • Reduced sickness and unauthorised absence
  • Minimised agency and locum cover

The licence type

Our current open-source products operate on a MIT license. The MIT license is a short and simple permissive license with conditions only requiring preservation of copyright and license notices. Licensed works, modifications, and larger works may be distributed under different terms and without source code.

Other licenses under consideration are the AGPL v3 license. Permissions of this strongest copyleft license are conditioned on making available complete source code of licensed works and modifications, which include larger works using a licensed work, under the same license. Copyright and license notices must be preserved. Contributors provide an express grant of patent rights. When a modified version is used to provide a service over a network, the complete source code of the modified version must be made available.

Appendix 2: Public Money Public Code

Upon funding agreement, Public Money, Public Code will establish its constitution, board structure and membership structures. The remaining funding will rest within the company for the system migration phases outlined above. The executive board will allocate the development budgets and oversee the project plan and completion. A membership structure will be set up to ensure future self-sustainability of the company, without any further funding requirements. Public Money Public Code is not predicated on SARD JV’s long term involvement and must be an independent body with the constitution at its centre.

Constitution

currently in draft by commercial lawyers

It is imperative that an agreed and definitive constitution is set out in the memorandum of association, as well as the rules to govern the company via its articles of association. The constitution will underpin the goals and objectives of the company and all the members that it serves.

Executive board responsibilities

The executive board will have overall responsibility for ensuring that the company meets its statutory and other obligations, and that the company is run in such a way that it will continue to satisfy the community interest test. They would act to make collective decisions and will be limited in the number of members and length of term. There will be a criteria for nomination and selection in place. During the initial establishment of the company a list of nominated board members are already presented.

Founding executive board member

Criteria for initial nomination

  • Advocate for open-source
  • Experience in the field
  • Technically literate
  • Proposed Board Members - Executive

Board members will be subject to a term limit and will need to be nominated for a place on the board. During the creation of the company, this proposal will act as the nomination process for board members to serve the first term. It is also proposed that the annual remuneration for a board member is £12,000 per annum. The initial list of board nominations are:

  • Kevin Monk (Managing Director)
  • Prof Joe McDonald
  • Rob Dyke
  • Marcus Baw

If you wish to be a founding board memeber, we will shortly be giving details of how to put yourself forward.

Leadership and direction

The company should be led by a managing director. The managing director should be appointed by the executive board members. Their primary responsibility must be to be a driving force for engaging with stakeholders and articulating the vision. As a metric of accountability and suitability for leadership, it should be non-ambiguous to any employee, contractor, board member or client who the leader is and the wider vision of the company.

Steering Group - Membership

Chair - Tim Donohoe NHSX

The steering group will be made up of membership representatives. The steering group will act as an advisory group to the executive board members. The membership will also be able make nominations to the executive board.

Membership Structure

Membership will be set up in the following way:

Membership Type Membership fee Output
Individual Membership £1,000 per annum Attendance at AGM / Periodic Reports / Executive board nominations
Trust Membership £20,000 per annum Attendance at AGM / Periodic Reports / Executive board nominations
Corporate Membership £50,000 per annum Attendance at AGM / Periodic Reports / Executive board nominations

Code Maintenance

Once the initial four systems are migrated to the company the maintenance of the code and documentation and the roles within that would need to be devised and established. The company would need to define how to incorporate regular project contributions into the workflow and how to resolve any community debates. Many open-source projects opt for the following roles:

  • Maintainer - Responsibility for the overall direction of the project and is committed to improving it.
  • Contributor - This role can cover a multitude of different areas including commenting on issues or pull requests, people who add value to the project and those who submit code.
  • Commiter - This is a more specific responsibility and is used to distinguish commit access.

This is drawn from the following source material: https://opensource.guide/leadership-and-governance/

Open-source Implementation

The code,documentation and APIs for each system will be available on GITHub and can be readily accessed. If a Trust already has the IT infrastructure available then the systems can be implemented internally. For those Trusts that require implementation, maintenance and support, external companies can quote for the opportunity based on the level or required assistance.

For example if a Trust wished to implement the eRostering system, SARD would be able to quote for the initial implementation of the system within the Trust as well as quote for the maintenance and support required within a time limited period, subject to contractual agreements. Should a tender be required, existing frameworks including the HSSF could be used to select the right supplier.

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