The NHS London Procurement Partnership (NHS LPP) develops and manages collaborative procurement projects on behalf of its members, including NHS clinical commissioning groups and acute, community, mental health and ambulance trusts.

Operating as a centre of commercial excellence, it delivers significant and sustainable cost and service improvements to the health economy relating not only to the procurement of digital technology, but also workforce, medicines optimisation and pharmacy, and estates and facilities management.

In order to provide NHS healthcare providers and the wider health and social care economy with the safe and efficient roll-out of mHealth applications, NHS LPP is introducing a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) that will enable a streamlined and compliant route to market.

As part of this opportunity, NHS LPP is inviting suppliers to submit apps for inclusion in the DPS.

All apps that apply will undergo an assessment by the Organisation for the Review of Health and Care Apps (ORCHA) and this will inform the selection decision made by NHS LPP. ORCHA’s review will look at 260 aspects of the app. Full details can be found at: Reviews & Accreditations

Serving a population with a wide range of health conditions, the programme is looking to include apps that address all conditions supported by the NHS and the health and social care sector. This includes mental health, women’s health, child health, diabetes, blood pressure and more. Apps may support the patient or the running of the organisation.

The tender will be open for applications from w/c 30 September 2019 at www.tendersdirect.co.uk and the DPS will go live before the end of November 2019.

This programme aims to deliver cost effective, safe and effective apps into public sector services across the United Kingdom.

To apply, developers should first register as a supplier on the NHS LPP procurement portal Proactis. Full details can be found at: https://www.lppsourcing.org/

Here at ORCHA, we’re continuously testing and questioning apps, on the lookout for apps which are safe, secure, easy to use and, most importantly, deliver real health outcomes. We now look at 226 elements, to help give health professionals and consumers an informed choice on which health apps to choose.

To help app developers produce the best apps, we’re sharing tips from across the 226 important aspects, which together may help to set your app apart from the rest!

Tip #4: How to personalise an app experience with privacy settings:

As a developer, staying up to date with the latest app regulations and standards is essential.

In this blog post, we highlight the importance of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Brought into effect in May 2018, GDPR is a new, Europe-wide law that replaces the Data Protection Act 1998 in the UK.

As set out by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), all businesses and organisations operating within the EU must comply with GDPR. If your app controls and/or processes personal information, you are accountable for the handling of this personal data and sensitive personal data. As such, GDPR requirements include: the need to be transparent about how personal data is processed; data must be adequate, relevant, accurate and kept up-to-date; data must not be kept for longer than is necessary, and must be processed such that there is appropriate security of the personal data.

In the GDPR, ‘personal data’ is defined as ‘any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’)’, ie. ‘one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.’

Under the GDPR, you must appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO) if your core activities include large scale processing of special categories of data, which includes information relating to an individual’s health. The GDPR defines ‘data concerning health’ as ‘personal data related to the physical or mental health of a natural person, including the provision of health care services, which reveal information about his or her health status.’

To access the full GDPR regulations, please click here.

For FAQs specific to small health sector bodies, read this information on the ICO’s website.

According to the MHFAengland (Mental Health First Aid England) 1 in 4 people experience mental health issues each year and mental health is the single largest source of burden of disease in the UK. Around 70-75% of people with diagnosable mental illness receive no treatment at all. This potentially offers an interesting opportunity for digital health solutions, such as mobile health applications.

To explore this opportunity, ORCHA has reviewed more than 350 of the market’s most downloaded, Level 4 Mental Health apps, looking at more than 226 criteria across three main components: Data Security (DS), Clinical Assurance (CA) and User Experience (UX).

To reveal the results, we’ve plotted their results in a 3D chart.

This reveals 3 key takeaways:

1.       Amongst the apps that scored above our quality threshold (65%), there were three (Red Circle) that scored exceptionally high which were Wysa, Brain in Hand and Sleepio. Wysa is also currently the highest scoring App on ORCHA’s appfinder across all health conditions, with a score of 93%.

2.       The App circled in blue (DGT Onderweg) is interesting as it scored similarly to some apps above our quality threshold, with the exception of a particularly poor score for Data Security. Similarly, in the Purple circle there are multiple apps that straddle the 65% boundary, indicating that a small change to any of the three domains could push them above the threshold.

3.      119 of the Apps were Green, 117 were Amber and 119 were Red, indicating an almost perfect split between the three bands. The biggest area where these Apps could improve is Clinical Assurance.

To explore our 3D chart, click here.
Or to read our mental health app reviews, follow this link.