CAF Lessons Learnt

11. NHS Connecting for Health Common Assurance Process

Introduction

The NHS Common Assurance Process (CAP) is a rigorous process to ensure that any system connecting to the NHS Spine is safe and secure.

The CAF Programme included a number of social care system suppliers using CAP to connect to the NHS Spine Personal Demographics Service (PDS) to provideessential identification and demographic information.

Pre-requisites to go through the CAP process for both sites and suppliers are;

  1. NHS Information Governance Statement of Compliance (IGSoC)
  2. A viable N3 Connection
  3. An NHS sponsor
  4. Agreed committed resources to support the process at the local level and the NHS Business Partners Team to take the supplier through CAP
  5. An agreed First of Type site

Once a system has gone through CAP it is accredited for deployment to other sites subject to a site architectural review. This may result in additional approvals and testing on a case by case basis, but not the full CAP process. Once a system has been accredited, a version of CAP continues to be used to assure that all subsequent supplier releases maintain this compliance. .

Key Principles and Learning

Ensuring IGSoC and N3 connectivity are in place prior to going through CAP will enable the suppliers and sites to progress efficiently.

Sites and suppliers going through the NHS CFH CAPfor PDS found the process challenging and that it took significantly longer and required more resources than originally anticipated. Itrequires;

-A clear understanding of the process by the supplier and the First of Type site (i.e. the first site to deploy the supplier’s PDS software)

-A realistic assessment of the time and resources required to deliver it from all parties

-A plan that is agreed by all parties and effectively managed

-Focus and commitment and a clear understanding of what is trying to being achieved and subsequent benefits

The consequences of these not being in place are that CAP will take much longer to undertake.

There was an uplift of CAP to simplify the process in 2008, whilst suppliers were already engaged in the process, which was disruptive to suppliers. Therefore, when such changes to CAP occur, effective change management is required by all parties.

Effective release management is required by NHS CfH to support the suppliers through the CAP process.

Integration with the NHS Spine, as with other types of integration, is a complex activity, potentially requiring new skills from suppliers. For example, HL7 v3 CDA messaging.

Given the complexity of the integration developments and the rigorousness of CAP, NHS CFH support to sites and suppliers is very important.An easily accessible repository of all relevant NHS CfH documentation is also required to allow suppliers to progress effectively.

The involvement of NHS CfH to assure access to an NHS National Service was new to adult social care and the roles and responsibilities of authorities, suppliers and NHS CfH was initially unclear. It is vital to be clear about roles and responsibilities of all parties at the outset.

CAP introduced the concept of clinical safety to social care, i.e. considering clinical risks introduced through the implementation of new IT systems and setting up arrangements to mitigate these risks. This is important in any information sharing with the NHS. Sites and suppliers need to identify individuals in their organisations to take responsibility for clinical safety and undertake the relevant training.

Local Authority connection to N3 may be complex in terms of architecture and service provision. Effective engagement with all stakeholders (e.g. local network administrators/ providers, budget holders etc) is essential for delivery.

Given the multiple suppliers/infrastructures involved, it is important to document the topology of the end to end connections to the NHS Spine, so that responsibilities and potential break points are clearly identified.

NHS CfH resources are finite, so;

-there is a need to engage early as it may take time to get agreement for a new system to beincluded in CAP.

-plans need to be agreed, and any deviations need to be communicated in a timely manner

-any changes may potentially create a delay in the process

It is essential that IT suppliers to the sites clearly articulate the IT configuration requirements to connect to PDS, given that local configurations may differ.

Examples from CAF Demonstrator Site Programme

The evidence documents shown below in bold italics can be found in the Common Assurance Process folder on the Common Assessment Framework for Adults Learning Network

Barnsley is linking their Liquidlogic IAS case management system to the PDS

Camden along with CoreLogic developed the CAF messaging functionality to enable the sharing of CAF documents with the Spine SCR, building on the PDS work in Greenwich.

East Cheshire has linked their IBM/Esprit ShareCare assessment system to the PDS. (See document: East Cheshire Evaluation Report – PDS v1.1)

Greenwich is linking their CoreLogic Frameworki case management system to the PDS

Rochdaleis linking their Liquidlogic IAS Case Management system to the PDS and is joint First of Type with Barnsley. They have produced a lessons learned document on the clinical safety role.

Shropshire is linking their OLM CareFirst case management system to the PDS

Southampton is linking their Civica Paris case management system to the PDS

Stockportis considering being a ‘second of type’ site with OLM (linking CareFirst case management system to PDS) and joint- first of type linkingthe Graphnet system to PDS.

Clinical Safety Information Sheet: more detailed guidance about clinical safety has been produced by the CAF co-ordinators.(See document: CAF Guidance Clinical Safety 120326 v0.7)

For further information see CAF Lessons Learnt

NHS Number, Personal Demographics Service and Demographics Batch Service

N3 and GCSX

Options for Information Sharing

Registration Authority

Information Governance

Useful Links and Other Sources of Information

Social Care PDS Early Adopters Lessons Learnt Report:

Suppliers interested in linking to the PDS, should make contact initially through the business partners website:

NHS Connecting for Health information on Personal Demographics Service:

NHS Connecting for Health information on the Interoperability Toolkit:

NHS Connecting for Health information on National Integration Centre testing tools:

Smart cards and Registration Authorities: (

Future Considerations

Other ways of connecting to the NHS Personal Demographics Service are being developed with the introduction of the NHS CFH Interoperability Toolkit. Some suppliers are developing services to link to the PDS, which they will take through CAP, and enable business applications to use them to link to the PDS, so that they do not have to go through CAP.

12.04.12Find the complete version of the CAF lessons learnt at: Page 1