NHS’ National School of Healthcare Science launches new management system in record time

One app to train 500+ healthcare scientists 

The National School of Healthcare Science (NSHCS) is an NHS England organization that oversees the education, training, and career progress of healthcare scientists across more than 30 specialties across programmes at multiple levels. Its mission ensures that scientists supporting NHS diagnostics and treatment meet the institution’s high professional standards.

Every year, the NSHCS trains over 2,000 people at PG Cert, master’s and doctorate levels on programmes lasting from 1 to 5 years. The National School managed this process using an on-premises Access database and multiple spreadsheets that kept on expanding as the training team tried to bridge the system’s gaps. This resulted in a spaghetti architecture, with duplicated data across systems, tedious manual entry, and an over-dependence on a few individuals for information. 

The situation reached a boiling point in early 2020. “When COVID-19 hit and we couldn’t go to the office, we simply couldn’t access the system. The limitation became stark,” shared Stuart Sutherland, Head of Digital at NSHCS. 

Initially, the NSHCS planned to migrate to a system used by the larger NHS organization. However, six years later, the IT team had not yet finished the project. It was time for a different approach.  

"I thought we could just buy a packaged trainee management system. But our needs are too specific. Building it turned out to be the most cost-effective solution."

Stuart Sutherland

Head of Digital

NSHCS

Reusability helps the NSHCS stay on budget  

The new system needed to meet several key requirements:

• Provide an intuitive user experience.
• Simplify ongoing maintenance.
• Offer remote access through a web-based interface.
• Comply with the NHS design system and the UK Government service standards.

The latter was a critical requirement to get the system approved. In the UK, every public digital tool must pass this Service Standard assessment to ensure services are secure, easy to use, and easy to evolve. The government introduced these guidelines to prevent costly IT failures and improve how citizens interact with public institutions. 

The School’s Digital Team considered buying an off-the-shelf solution but quickly realized that adapting it to NHS guidelines would cost more time and money. 

So, the NSHCS partnered with Torchbox, a digital agency specializing in supporting charities and government organizations, to build a custom system. Since the user experience was vital, Torchbox recommended using the OutSystems agentic systems platform.

“The beauty of OutSystems is that it allows us to build interactive prototypes quickly and  UI components following the NHS design system directly on the platform. This gave a more realistic experience for user testing and saved time in build,” explained Anna Pellicci, Delivery Manager at Torchbox. “We could easily iterate in the build environment and reuse work from the user research phase.” 

This approach created faster feedback loops and bridged the gap between the development team and the users. “When people could see something working—HTML mock-ups, reports in Google tools—, they understood workflows better and provided faster and better feedback,” said Stuart.

Additionally, a few other features made OutSystems the right choice for this project: 

• User authentication that provides a secure framework for user accounts with robust role-based access control.
• Security-by-design that ensures the ongoing maintenance of components, architecture, and infrastructure.
• Compliance with GDPR, WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards, and NHS-appropriate styling that would make the project more cost-effective.

"By creating reusable front-end components within OutSystems, we drastically reduced development toil and saved significant time across the entire project lifecycle."

Anna Pellicci

Delivery Manager

Torchbox

A new standard for delivery speed in the NHS 

The trainee management system built with OutSystems was one of the fastest projects the NHS has ever delivered. After six years waiting for a solution, the new system went live in just eight months. It now manages over 2,000 trainees annually and covers more than 30 specialties.

The system transformed daily operations by centralizing trainee records all in one place. A new demographic tool allows staff to pull trends on sex, ethnicity, and disability that were previously impossible to track. “The system has normalized so quickly that people can't remember a time before it,” Stuart concluded. 

In an industry where securing budget is often difficult, the agility achieved through OutSystems helped NSHCS overcome years of slow and painful approvals and development. By minimizing rework, the team secured approval for a project that had been stalled for six years, all while staying within budget. Furthermore, with the NHS-compliant component library built with OutSystems, the NSHCS has now the foundation to build and scale future solutions even faster. 

"The rapid feedback loops allowed us to meet UK government standards and stay within budget, speeding up a solution our users had anticipated for years."

Stuart Sutherland

Head of Digital

NSHCS