The Future NHS Workforce Solution Transformation Programme is leading the procurement, design and implementation of the Future NHS Workforce Solution - a new and enhanced workforce management solution for the NHS that will succeed the Electronic Staff Record (ESR).
ESR processes £55 billion in payroll each year to over 1.9 million NHS employees across England and Wales, which accounts for around 5% of the UK workforce.
The NHSBSA was commissioned by Department of Health and Social Care to deliver the future solution and the next-generation platform supports the government’s NHS 10 year Health Plan and its mission to create an NHS workforce that is fit for the future.
The future solution is expected to be fully implemented by 2030 and will support NHS organisations and their employees by providing a complete employment lifecycle platform. It will support everything from recruitment and onboarding to career development, workforce management, payroll and retirement.
Why we had to procure a new contract
The contract with ESR’s current supplier will end in 2026 and the software that ESR is built on will be decommissioned in 2035, which is why a new workforce solution is of critical importance.
To better meet the needs of the NHS workforce, the future solution will improve user experience and provide a more modern, flexible and integrated platform.
What to expect in the future solution
NHS staff will use the future solution in a variety of ways that are designed to be more intuitive, efficient and empowering compared to the current ESR system. The key features include:
- improved existing functions with ESR but also additional new functionality of talent acquisition, career development and performance management
- AI, for managers and leaders to create quicker and better workforce planning and data-driven decision making
- the latest technology which will further empower the NHS workforce to better manage their own personal information quicker and better connect with other digital systems
As the design of the future solution develops, more specific details on what the future solution will bring to the NHS workforce will be shared.
Who will be impacted and who has been engaged in the journey so far
People services colleagues across the NHS in England and Wales have been engaged throughout the journey, so that the solution is designed with the NHS workforce at its core.
NHS people will be at the heart of the design of the future solution and the NHSBSA has listened to over 15,000 people across the NHS workforce, to understand their needs.
All organisations across the NHS will be impacted by the transition to the future solution. The programme works closely with strategic leaders including chief people officers and their professional leads, such as human resource directors, within people services across the NHS. They are the key to widespread adoption of the future solution.
They are all pivotal in supporting widespread adoption of the future solution within their own organisations and are the people to make the digital transformation happen locally.
Discovery 1.0 - User experience and stakeholder engagement
In February 2021, the programme began an initial discovery phase and completed user research, which helped develop an understanding of what our NHS people needed in the future solution.
Seven functional domains were identified that are essential operational core requirements in enabling people services and the workforce to function. These are:
- talent acquisition
- career development
- learning
- performance management
- compensation and benefits
- payroll
- core HR
New and additional functionality includes talent acquisition, career development and performance management.
Performance management, compensations and benefits, HR, payroll and learning which are currently featured in ESR, will be enhanced and improved.
The functionality will be supported by improved technical capabilities which enable the system to perform effectively, scale reliably and integrate securely.
Discovery 2.0 - Strategic alignment and testing the market
In July 2021, the second phase was launched to align the programme to key NHS workforce impacting strategies and national workforce programmes.
Working with stakeholders across the NHS and government, the programme clarified key strategic workforce priorities and risks for the future solution. This helped us make sure the future solution is designed and developed around user needs to meet critical requirements and enable these strategies and programmes.
The outcomes identified 4 key themes that the future solution needs to support and how it will enable best use of NHS resources:
- Emphasis on employee experience.
- Enabling seamless staff mobility.
- Building an adaptive workforce.
- Delivering shared services.
These were validated through further user and business needs gathering. At the same time, the programme engaged with the supplier market to validate the vision and understand the potential options of delivering the future solution. The insight and understanding that was gained from this process informed the direction of the procurement process and the development of the programme’s business case.
Discovery 3.0: pre-procurement activities and requirements development
In the final stage of discovery, the programme undertook pre-procurement activities to help support the procurement stage of the programme. This included using the findings from Discovery 1.0 and 2.0 and undertaking engagement exercises with users and stakeholders.
This involved a deep dive into the 7 functional areas, found in the first discovery, along with research with key strategic partners and stakeholders identify the business needs associated with those functional areas.
Primary care discovery
In parallel with Discovery 3.0, the programme completed a primary care discovery to further explore the needs for the future NHS workforce solution in primary care, specifically General Practice.
The programme engaged with a range of colleagues from across primary care via a survey, online interviews and workshops to understand their needs.
The findings of the discovery were reviewed and it was found that primary care and social care are out of scope for the future NHS workforce solution. However, part of the requirements of the future solution is that it should be scalable to support future growth. This would enable primary care and social care to be included in the future.
Programme roadmap
The table shows the key stages in the roadmap that the programme is working towards.
| Spring 2022 |
The programme completed the discovery projects to validate business, user and stakeholder needs, initial supplier market engagement and pre-procurement activities |
| Easter 2022 |
The programme completed the engagement survey with primary care colleagues to understand how feasible an interim solution is. |
| Summer 2022 |
The programme started the procurement project using the outcomes from the Discovery stage projects. |
| From Autumn 2025 |
The programme aims to complete the procurement phase and award the contract to the successful supplier. The programme will start transformation planning to inform the timescales for the delivery of the future solution. Service design and implementation planning will allow the programme to commence the transformation activities. |
|
From 2027
|
Early adopters will implement the future solution, transitioning from ESR. |
| 2030 |
Implementation is aimed to conclude with all organisations having adopted and transitioned to the future solution and ESR will be decommissioned. |
Engage with the programme
The views of our stakeholders are valuable to us. We’re committed to putting users at the heart of the design of the Future NHS Workforce Solution and the programme will be looking to engage widely with stakeholders, to share information about the programme through a variety of channels.
This page will be updated at key stages throughout the programme as it progresses. You can receive updates directly to your mailbox by completing online sign-up form for the Stakeholder Update, or join the programme on the FutureNHS collaboration page.
You can read about how the programme uses your information in our privacy notice and on its FutureNHS page.
Contact us
If you have a question or want to get in touch, you can email the programme team at futurenhsworkforcesolution@nhsbsa.nhs.uk
Existing NHSBSA ESR service
The NHSBSA ESR service team will continue to enhance the current ESR solution to improve the capability and user experience. They will continue to support organisations to maximise their use of this system. The enhancement process with ESR special interest groups and other stakeholder forums will continue as normal.
