Describing the development journey when working with the e-Referral APIs

The diagram below provides a more detailed view of a typical Development Journey as a sequence of phases together with the key activities, support materials and/or services provided by the Ecosystem.

Note that not all activities are illustrated. For instance Target Operating Model, Clinical Safety assessment and Information Governance (IG) assurance.

As shown in the figure above, a typical scenario involves the following steps:

• a Business Partner has an innovative idea related to the e-Referral Service
• the Partner visits the NHS e-RS API Web Portal and navigates to the Get Started section after reading the provided development information (which additionally covers other technical and non-technical documentation), they decide to gain hands-on experience of the API and register their interest
• they get in touch with the Integration Team and arrange to fill in a Target Operating Model (TOM), a light-weight framework used to self-assure the Partner’s system confirming it meets the requirements and passes compliance
• after completing the TOM, they proceed to acquire a reasonable grasp of the API framework and begin the development lifecycle (Design, Implement and System Test) of the new software product
• when the new software has been successfully integrated with an existing clinical system, subject to satisfying the relevant assurance process it will be certified as an NHS e-RS API Certified Product, after which it can be deployed in a live setting