NHS England Digital Weight Management  Beta Assessment

From: DHSCAssessment date: 20/03/2025Stage: Beta assessmentResult: GreenService provider: NHS England

Service description 

The NHS Digital Weight Management Programme provides accessible, flexible, and digital behavioural weight management support for adults with obesity and long-term conditions. Commissioned by NHSE, it offers a 12-week structured programme via smartphone, tablet, or computer, removing the need for in-person attendance. The Referral Hub streamlines patient access through Primary Care: General Practice, Community Pharmacy and Community Care Healthcare professionals; Secondary Care: Elective Care Waiting lists, and Self Directed: NHS staff self-referrals, enabling a personalised service selection for all. Designed to support NHS service commitments, the programme empowers users to develop healthier habits and achieve sustainable weight loss through digital, evidence-based interventions delivered by NHSE commissioned Weight Management Service Provide 

Service users 

This service is for four types of users:  

External: GP / Primary Care Healthcare professionals – those referring patients into the Hub via the e-RS    External: Community Pharmacy / Community Care Healthcare professionals – those referring patients into the Hub via the on-line web-based referral forms.   External: NHS Trusts/ Secondary Care Elective Care waiting list Healthcare professionals those referring patients into the Hub via the on-line web-based referral forms.   Patients (adults) and carers.   Internal:    Midlands and Lancashire NHS Commissioning Support Unit Referral Management Centre (RMC) staff and business intelligence analysts,   

2. NHS England Analysts  

Report contents Understand users and their needs Solve a whole problem for users Provide a joined-up experience across all channels Make the service simple to use Make sure everyone can use the service Have a multidisciplinary team Use agile ways of working Iterate and improve frequently Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy Define what success looks like and publish performance data Choose the right tools and technology Make new source code open Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns Operate a reliable service 1. Understand users and their needs 

Decision The service was rated green for point 1 of the Standard. 

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service: 

revisit the documented user needs to ensure they represent people’s high-level reasons for engaging with the service.  For example, ‘I need my patients to lose weight to increase the chances of their surgery’s success.  Those presented were functional like ‘I need to be able to save progress’  document and make visible the process and outcomes for ensuring the organisations completing research are compliant with all required standards like consent, data storage, sampling, reducing bias for example  continue to secure a dedicated user researcher for the service.  This would improve the responsiveness with which the team can gather insights and act on them  2. Solve a whole problem for users 

Decision The service was rated green for point 2 of the Standard. 

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service: 

continue to test support channels and offline parts of the service so they remain joined up  continue to influence partners, stakeholders and other departments with what you find out  3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels 

Decision The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard. 

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service 

continue to apply findings from user research for the digital journey to offline channels, like the chatbot script, patient information and training resources  maintain assessing third party apps and hold them accountable if they do not meet agreed standards  continue to share data with other departments and GPs, and agree a process for keeping them up to date with changes  carry on looking for ways to improve the service, for example, by changing the 2factor authentication code to make it more accessible    4. Make the service simple to use 

Decision The service was rated green for point 4 of the Standard. 

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service 

continue sharing new design patterns and research with the wider design community and design system team  keep creating a content style guide for the service and share with other services dealing with weight management   maintain your work on inclusive language and update new content and screens  carry on reusing existing infrastructure and design   continue minimising the number of times users provide the same information to NHS services (while respecting their privacy)  5. Make sure everyone can use the service  

Decision The service was rated green for point 5 of the Standard. 

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service 

continue to meet accessibility standards and remember to update the accessibility statement if things change  launch the information video in 8 languages and share with other teams what you have learned and how you did it  continue to iterate the design based on user research with disabled users  maintain use inclusive language across the whole service, including text messages, the chatbot script and any training materials  6. Have a multidisciplinary team 

Decision The service was rated green for point 6 of the Standard. 

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service 

explore the possibility of bringing in user research and content design skills into the core team  7. Use agile ways of working 

Decision The service was rated green for point 7 of the Standard. 

8. Iterate and improve frequently 

Decision The service was rated green for point 8 of the Standard. 

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service 

seek ways to shorten feedback loops between user research findings and product development through either an in-team user researcher or through different timelines with partners  9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy 

Decision The service was rated green for point 9 of the Standard. 

10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data 

Decision  The service was rated green for point 10 of the Standard. 

Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service 

consider how to make performance data findable and accessible for a non-specialist audience. Consider publishing KPI metrics via the NHS digital service catalogue.   11. Choose the right tools and technology 

Decision 

The service was rated green for point 11 of the Standard. 

12. Make new source code open 

Decision  The service was rated green for point 12 of the Standard. 

Open-source repositories: 

https://github.com/mlcsu-digitalinnovations/wms  https://github.com/mlcsu-digitalinnovations/wms-additional-ui  https://github.com/mlcsu-digitalinnovations/wms-templates  13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns 

Decision  The service was rated green for point 13 of the Standard. 

14. Operate a reliable service 

Decision The service was rated green for point 14 of the Standard. 

https://digitalhealth.blog.gov.uk/2026/03/13/nhs-england-digital-weight-management-beta-assessment/

seen at 19:00, 13 March in Digital health and social care.