BJSS today announced that it has delivered a project on behalf of Britain’s health service to bring day-to-day maintenance of its Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data platform fully in-house.

HES, which is managed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) ensures that hospitals and affiliated providers in England receive payment for their services. The data is also used for the secure analysis of health trends, performance benchmarks, academic research and international comparisons. HSCIC previously worked with a third-party provider to ensure day-to-day platform maintenance.

BJSS Technical Architects and Project Managers worked closely with the HSCIC and the existing third-party provider to understand the current day-to-day process of HES and to define its strategic requirements. This consultation revealed that the most effective route would be to embark on a full re-write of the entire HES platform. It took three BJSS developers 12 months to replace the existing 3.5 million lines of SQL code and 500-step manual process running on six machines, with 100,000 lines of SQL code and a two-step automated process running on one machine.

By deploying the BJSS solution, the HSCIC is able to carry its work with increased efficiency by using the rewritten platform. The BJSS-delivered version of HES also delivers a reduction in operating costs.

Mike Buck, BJSS Public Sector Practice Lead, comments: “Ensuring the day-to-day maintenance of HES fully in-house was our top priority. We have handed over full source control and completed a comprehensive knowledge transfer programme. We have also provided HES with identical production and non-production environments, allowing the HSCIC team to maintain the system themselves, while also having the confidence in testing and deploying future innovations.”

“This project shows that a ‘textbook’ approach isn’t always best. While commonality between projects may exist, no two are ever the same. Innovative thinking should be applied towards building a solution which best meets the client’s circumstances.”