Week 111: Mind the gap
This week I saw someone slip and fall so that their leg slid into the gap between the tube train I was on and the platform edge. They were ok. They managed to climb back out whilst I held back the doors. I and some other passengers helped them to a seat. We were all a bit shocked, and they a bit embarrassed.
This kind of accident isn’t uncommon, and hundreds of passengers get injured this way each year. Designs to help reduce it include lines and markings on the platform edges, yellow zigzags on the train doors (to try and subliminally discourage jumping between them whilst closing), and those famous announcements over the tannoys. Each of these can be considered a prevention measure. But whilst they probably help, they don’t address the underlying environmental cause of curved platforms and historic infrastructure. Fixing that is much harder and more expensive, requiring sustained investment and the political will.
This struck me as similar to prevention in health.
Getting a test
I spent much of the week designing a new prototype for the NHS App. My brief was to explore how ordering self-test kits could be brought together with seeing the results from those tests, across the different types of test kits from different services.
I crept the scope.
The self-test kits you can order are nearly always an alternative to other ways to get the same test, whether it’s picking up a kit at a pharmacy, having a blood sample taken by a nurse at a clinic or booking an appointment with your GP.
Currently each of these routes has a different way to access them, often via different websites or phone numbers.
The prototype I’ve made (in native Swift code) demos bringing it all together. Not an “order a test” feature but a “get a test” feature. That then shows you the options for the test you’ve selected, and then lets you either order it, find the nearest walk-in site, or book an appointment.
The same pattern could work for other things too, like getting a vaccination or prescription.
I don’t claim this is a novel idea - I’m sure others must have proposed similar before. It’s probably represented on many a service design blueprint. But as an organisation it’s not something we’ve so far been able to do. Instead we ship our org chart.
I showed it to Mike and Ralph on Friday, and they thought it offered coherence. The hard part will be persuading others, particularly those who might understandably feel defensive where this encroaches on an area they’re responsible for.
But I think we should push the app design in the direction of closing the gaps between services.
I went to see the DPSP house band Public Service Broadcasting at Ally Pally this weekend. Was excellent.