adds changes to plan post #336
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It seems like there may be a space within this path?
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I'm guessing the parent folder name includes a space when it shouldn't.
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Yeah, the page renders at https://dsps-design-main-gcmurwfiskrgd.herokuapp.com/screening-invite/2025/12/changes-to-the-digital-first-breast-screening-communication-plans%20/ - a space at the end!
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...g-invite/2025/12/changes-to-the-digital-first-breast-screening-communication-plans /index.md
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| This post covers what we would have done next after delivering invitations in Private Beta. We hope it’ll help future teams looking at participant engagement in breast screening understand some of the challenges and complexities. | ||
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| ## Comms types |
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Spell out communciation?
...g-invite/2025/12/changes-to-the-digital-first-breast-screening-communication-plans /index.md
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I'm guessing the parent folder name includes a space when it shouldn't.
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| This post covers what we would have done next after delivering invitations in Private Beta. We hope it’ll help future teams looking at participant engagement in breast screening understand some of the challenges and complexities. | ||
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| ## Comms types |
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This bit of markdown is broken. I'm not sure why!
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| Text reminders are already prevalent in the service, with the majority of BSOs sending a couple of reminders ahead of the appointment, but at a variety of time intervals. Had we continued, we would have done a short piece of research to understand the most effective timing for reminders, and ratified our assumptions that sending only digital reminders was appropriate. | ||
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| ### Non-attenders of first appointment |
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This bit of markdown is broken. Not sure why!
…st-screening-communication-plans /index.md Co-authored-by: Ed Horsford <mail@edwardhorsford.com>
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…st-screening-communication-plans /index.md Co-authored-by: Ed Horsford <mail@edwardhorsford.com>
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Corrected formatting of the 'Communication types' header and clarified the explanation of participant engagement challenges.
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| ## Communication types | ||
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| There were some obvious next steps that we would have looked to tackle had we continued with the roll-out. Launching with only invitations for the initial screening appointment meant that there were a remaining messages relating to the appointment phase of the participant journey that were not being communicated in a consistent way. Therefore we quickly wanted to investigate how we could support with communicating with participants in the following scenarios.: |
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Fix ending punctuation?
Clarified the communication scenarios for participant engagement in breast screening.
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| ## Further information | ||
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| A summary of the Private Beta user research activities [can be found in this post](screening-invite/2025/12/invite-breast-screening-private-beta-user-research/). We hope that these can feed into future work on the participant experience in breast screening pathway and help the clinical programme meet its goals. |
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| A summary of the Private Beta user research activities [can be found in this post](screening-invite/2025/12/invite-breast-screening-private-beta-user-research/). We hope that these can feed into future work on the participant experience in breast screening pathway and help the clinical programme meet its goals. | |
| A summary of the Private Beta user research activities [can be found in this post](/screening-invite/2025/12/invite-breast-screening-private-beta-user-research/). We hope that these can feed into future work on the participant experience in breast screening pathway and help the clinical programme meet its goals. |
Sorry if this was my bad suggestion. Needs a leading forward slash to work.
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Interesting! Left some comments, mostly stylistic suggestions.
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| The focus for [Team Invite](/screening-invite/) until very recently was on rolling out digital communications in the routine breast screening pathway, using NHS Notify. We were in the Private Beta phase, working with a handful of breast screening offices (BSO) on how we could deliver invitations for the initial screening appointment. We were doing this by ingesting appointment data from National Breast Screening System (NBSS), via a MESH inbox, into the Manage Breast Screening component. We were then applying time-based logic to send out invitations 4 weeks before the appointment (or immediately if the appointment was booked after this point). However because we weren’t fully integrating with NBSS, we learnt during Private Beta that the level of service we could provide BSOs at this stage was limited and we risked introducing something that didn’t fully meet their needs and would be difficult to scale beyond a handful of BSOs. |
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This is quite a long opening para - maybe split it up? Or add a shorter opening para above which gives more of a summary?
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| The focus for [Team Invite](/screening-invite/) until very recently was on rolling out digital communications in the routine breast screening pathway, using NHS Notify. We were in the Private Beta phase, working with a handful of breast screening offices (BSO) on how we could deliver invitations for the initial screening appointment. We were doing this by ingesting appointment data from National Breast Screening System (NBSS), via a MESH inbox, into the Manage Breast Screening component. We were then applying time-based logic to send out invitations 4 weeks before the appointment (or immediately if the appointment was booked after this point). However because we weren’t fully integrating with NBSS, we learnt during Private Beta that the level of service we could provide BSOs at this stage was limited and we risked introducing something that didn’t fully meet their needs and would be difficult to scale beyond a handful of BSOs. | ||
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| Therefore, rather than trying to force it alongside the legacy system, the decision has been made to pause the work on delivering digital comms in breast screening until it can be done in the right way, alongside the new end-to-end digital service replacing NBSS. Although it was a difficult decision to make because of the hard work that has gone into it so far, it is the right one given the renewed focus on replacing legacy breast screening systems, rather than further deepening our reliance on them. |
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Avoid passive tense ("the decision has been made")?
The "it" in this first sentence is a bit confusing too.
Suggested change
| Therefore, rather than trying to force it alongside the legacy system, the decision has been made to pause the work on delivering digital comms in breast screening until it can be done in the right way, alongside the new end-to-end digital service replacing NBSS. Although it was a difficult decision to make because of the hard work that has gone into it so far, it is the right one given the renewed focus on replacing legacy breast screening systems, rather than further deepening our reliance on them. | |
| Rather than trying to force it alongside the legacy system, we have made the decision to pause the work on delivering digital comms in breast screening until it can be done in the right way, alongside the new end-to-end digital service replacing NBSS. Although it was a difficult decision to make because of the hard work that has gone into it so far, it is the right one given the renewed focus on replacing legacy breast screening systems, rather than further deepening our reliance on them. |
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| Therefore, rather than trying to force it alongside the legacy system, the decision has been made to pause the work on delivering digital comms in breast screening until it can be done in the right way, alongside the new end-to-end digital service replacing NBSS. Although it was a difficult decision to make because of the hard work that has gone into it so far, it is the right one given the renewed focus on replacing legacy breast screening systems, rather than further deepening our reliance on them. | ||
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| This post covers what we would have done next after delivering invitations in Private Beta. We hope it’ll help future teams looking at participant engagement in breast screening understand some of the challenges and complexities. |
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Avoid academic style "this post..." self-references?
Suggested change
| This post covers what we would have done next after delivering invitations in Private Beta. We hope it’ll help future teams looking at participant engagement in breast screening understand some of the challenges and complexities. | |
| Here is what we would have done next after delivering invitations in Private Beta. We hope this’ll help future teams looking at participant engagement in breast screening understand some of the challenges and complexities. |
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| ## Communication types | ||
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| There were some obvious next steps that we would have looked to tackle had we continued with the roll-out. Launching with only invitations for the initial screening appointment meant that there were a remaining messages relating to the appointment phase of the participant journey that were not being communicated in a consistent way. Therefore we quickly wanted to investigate how we could support with communicating with participants in the following scenarios.: |
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This sentence is missing some words?
Launching with only invitations for the initial screening appointment meant that there were a remaining messages relating to the appointment phase of the participant journey that were not being communicated in a consistent way
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| ### Reminders | ||
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| Text reminders are already prevalent in the service, with the majority of BSOs sending a couple of reminders ahead of the appointment, but at a variety of time intervals. Had we continued, we would have done a short piece of research to understand the most effective timing for reminders, and ratified our assumptions that sending only digital reminders was appropriate. |
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"tested" instead of "ratified"?
Suggested change
| Text reminders are already prevalent in the service, with the majority of BSOs sending a couple of reminders ahead of the appointment, but at a variety of time intervals. Had we continued, we would have done a short piece of research to understand the most effective timing for reminders, and ratified our assumptions that sending only digital reminders was appropriate. | |
| Text reminders are already prevalent in the service, with the majority of BSOs sending a couple of reminders ahead of the appointment, but at a variety of time intervals. Had we continued, we would have done a short piece of research to understand the most effective timing for reminders, and tested our assumptions that sending only digital reminders was appropriate. |
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| ### Rescheduled appointments | ||
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| A challenge we had while integrating with NBSS was that we couldn’t easily or accurately identify when an appointment that we were receiving was newly booked or rescheduled, and if the latter, whether it was driven by the participant or the BSO. From research in Private Beta we found out that these distinctions are important: firstly in terms of it being clear which was the relevant appointment time, given the participant may have received multiple invitations. Secondly, the context within the message of who had rescheduled the appointment and why was important, especially if it was BSO-led due to issues such as staff shortages. For teams looking at these scenarios in the new service, it would be worth exploring how this can be better supported, so the messaging is clear, and participants know exactly which timing is relevant after rescheduling. |
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Suggested change
| A challenge we had while integrating with NBSS was that we couldn’t easily or accurately identify when an appointment that we were receiving was newly booked or rescheduled, and if the latter, whether it was driven by the participant or the BSO. From research in Private Beta we found out that these distinctions are important: firstly in terms of it being clear which was the relevant appointment time, given the participant may have received multiple invitations. Secondly, the context within the message of who had rescheduled the appointment and why was important, especially if it was BSO-led due to issues such as staff shortages. For teams looking at these scenarios in the new service, it would be worth exploring how this can be better supported, so the messaging is clear, and participants know exactly which timing is relevant after rescheduling. | |
| A challenge we had while integrating with NBSS was that we couldn’t easily or accurately identify when an appointment that we were receiving was newly booked or rescheduled, and if the latter, whether it was driven by the participant or the BSO. From research in private beta we found out that these distinctions are important: firstly in terms of it being clear which was the relevant appointment time, given the participant may have received multiple invitations. Secondly, the context within the message of who had rescheduled the appointment and why was important, especially if it was BSO-led due to issues such as staff shortages. For teams looking at these scenarios in the new service, it would be worth exploring how this can be better supported, so the messaging is clear, and participants know exactly which timing is relevant after rescheduling. |
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| ### Results | ||
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| A significant part of the participant journey that we hadn’t delved into in depth was how results should be communicated. Other screening programmes have led the way in understanding the most appropriate channels for communicating both normal and abnormal results. However this would need to be looked at specifically in the context of breast screening, given the sensitivity of the messages and different service context and demographic group. Equally, learning from how we approached Private Beta, time should be spent on understanding the current process of how BSOs process and send out the results, so that it can inform the solution in the new service. For example, how much can or should the sending of results be automated? Do BSOs want a level of control over when results are sent so it can be coordinated with other activities they carry out? |
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Could also split this para into a few?
Suggested change
| A significant part of the participant journey that we hadn’t delved into in depth was how results should be communicated. Other screening programmes have led the way in understanding the most appropriate channels for communicating both normal and abnormal results. However this would need to be looked at specifically in the context of breast screening, given the sensitivity of the messages and different service context and demographic group. Equally, learning from how we approached Private Beta, time should be spent on understanding the current process of how BSOs process and send out the results, so that it can inform the solution in the new service. For example, how much can or should the sending of results be automated? Do BSOs want a level of control over when results are sent so it can be coordinated with other activities they carry out? | |
| A significant part of the participant journey that we hadn’t delved into in depth was how results should be communicated. Other screening programmes have led the way in understanding the most appropriate channels for communicating both normal and abnormal results. However this would need to be looked at specifically in the context of breast screening, given the sensitivity of the messages and different service context and demographic group. Equally, learning from how we approached private beta, time should be spent on understanding the current process of how BSOs process and send out the results, so that it can inform the solution in the new service. For example, how much can or should the sending of results be automated? Do BSOs want a level of control over when results are sent so it can be coordinated with other activities they carry out? |
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| ## Beyond specific comms types | ||
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| Working with BSOs highlighted some areas that we were not specifically looking at for Private Beta that we would need to consider for wider roll-out, that spanned the participant experience rather than being specific to a comms type. |
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This paragraph is a bit vague to me? Could you give some examples?
Suggested change
| Working with BSOs highlighted some areas that we were not specifically looking at for Private Beta that we would need to consider for wider roll-out, that spanned the participant experience rather than being specific to a comms type. | |
| Working with BSOs highlighted some areas that we were not specifically looking at for private beta that we would need to consider for wider roll-out, that spanned the participant experience rather than being specific to a comms type. |
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| Much of the excitement we were getting from BSOs when talking about digital comms wasn’t necessarily about the comms themselves, but the participant actions that could be driven from them that could help BSOs. Some ideas we wanted to explore were: | ||
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| * participants being able to confirm if they were attending an appointment or not | ||
| * collecting personal information about a participant ahead of the appointment | ||
| * whether they had potential for improving clinic management and appointment outcomes. |
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This seems like one of the most interesting and important sections! Maybe consider moving it up a bit?
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| ## Further information | ||
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| A summary of the Private Beta user research activities [can be found in this post](screening-invite/2025/12/invite-breast-screening-private-beta-user-research/). We hope that these can feed into future work on the participant experience in breast screening pathway and help the clinical programme meet its goals. |
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Could move this link into the introductory paragraph, and then drop this section?
edwardhorsford
approved these changes
Dec 22, 2025
Updated the communication plans for digital breast screening, clarifying the decision to pause digital comms until a new service is implemented. Enhanced clarity and consistency in the text regarding participant engagement and service integration.
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