EPIC: Widen adoption of the service manual by including key professional-facing patterns in the design system

[georginaplatt]

What

Following on from the discovery/audit of professional/staff-facing systems we now need to include key professional-facing patterns in the design system.

Why

Many of the patterns and styles used to improve the services provided to patients may be relevant to teams developing services for professionals.

Must

Should

Outcome

Increased use of the service manual across NHS Digital and greater standardisation across healthcare systems.

Work contributing to this epic:

• Header for 'logged in' users nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#192
• Add task list component and pattern #2031
• Update page template examples #1975
• Update typography page with new type scale #2017
• Prep numbered pagination option #2047
• Warning button variant nhsuk-frontend#976
• Scope and plan UR to understand where users expect to find patterns and components for staff facing systems #2093
• Add notification banner component nhsuk-frontend#1408
• Update secondary button style nhsuk-frontend#1077
• Add button group and full width button styles nhsuk-frontend#1309
• Add small checkboxes and radios and add some guidance from GOV #2278

[Moll-Lee]

In January, the NHS Service Manual team partnered with Snook to undertake a discovery into how the service manual and its associated products could better meet the needs of its users. A key theme of the outputs of discovery was that there is still an unmet need for those who want to create non-patient-facing services for the NHS. In 2021 a discovery was undertaken to look at this work which yielded some key areas we could improve the offering of non-patient-facing services. As part of the upcoming service manual roadmap, we want to pick up where this work left off and validate that the previous discovery is still a current need. We are currently working internally to discuss the scope and outcomes of this work but have agreed it is a key priority for the service manual once there is more team capacity.

[jackiemellorbrownlee]

Lots of NHS applications use the Care Identity Service (CIS) to authenticate, allowing healthcare workers can access patient data.

The user support content provided about CIS across services that use CIS authentication is inconsistent, and has gaps within services.

The Care Identity Service would like to work with the NHS England content profession to create design patterns for supporting different CIS user types, which can be used by each service to provide consistent, accurate and up-to-date support for authentication.

Here are a few example services that reference CIS, in different ways:

• Cervical screening management system (CSMS)
• Bowel Cancer Screening
• e-Referral Service
• Electronic Prescription Service

There's lots of good practice here, but it would be great to be more consistent
To put this into context, there are 1.3 million active users of CIS authentication, accessing over 40 NHSE and 3rd party staff-facing services.

[sarawilcox]

We're kicking off work in this area with developing the Header for 'logged in' users #192.

[LauraJD]

Finding from the service manual survey (Spring 2025):Patterns and components for staff-facing services were identified as the main thing missing from the service manual.
Respondents wanted more patterns and components for staff facing services such as the hero banner.

[LauraJD]

We prioritised 9 patterns and components for staff-facing services following a community survey and team workshop (Summer 2025).

Priority list:

1. Notification banner nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#559 - published
2. Smaller checkboxes and radio buttons nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#83 - in progress
3. Accessible autocomplete nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#111
4. Sortable tables nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#560 - in progress
5. Time format in clinician-facing systems nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#554
6. Secondary navigation (tabbed) nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#556
7. Looking up a person in NHS records nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#307
8. Patient details header nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#105
9. Date picker nhsuk-service-manual-community-backlog#493