Supplementary memorandum by Methods Consulting
(MMC 58)
FURTHER INFORMATION REQUESTED DURING THE
ORAL EVIDENCE SESSION OF 13 DECEMBER 2007
1. This document contains a written clarification
of an answer provided to Sandra Gidley MP, as requested during
the oral session. In the oral session I was asked to clarify our
contact with the MMC team during the MTAS project (Q266).
CLARIFICATION
2. As explained in the oral session, the
MTAS project's role was to design, build and run a solution against
a set of detailed requirements which were provided into the project
from other groups.
3. Our contact with the MMC team during
the design of the MTAS system came predominantly from our engagement
with the "steering groups", the membership of which
included MMC team members.
4. There were two steering groups responsible
for defining how recruitment of junior doctors should take place,
one group looking at foundation recruitment, the other looking
at specialty recruitment, both managed by the Conference of Postgraduate
Medical Education Deans (COPMED) outside of the MTAS project.
5. Specifically, the steering groups were
responsible for defining inputs to the MTAS project which included
areas such as the overall business process for recruitment, application
form structure, content and associated explanatory guidance for
applicants, eligibility criteria for applicants, the number and
type of the applications that each applicant could make, rules
for scoring applicants, timetable for recruitment, etc. The steering
groups were also responsible for liaising with the wider stakeholder
community to ensure that what they were proposing was acceptable.
6. The specialty steering group included
Shelley Heard, of MMC, and was supported by a full time project
manager from the MMC team.
7. We held a series of formal workshops
with the specialty steering group between September and December
2006 during which aspects of the rules and their implications
for the design of the system were clarified. The outcomes of the
workshops were recorded in structured notes, which then became
embodied in changes to the prototype and a requirements catalogue.
The prototype and requirements catalogue, along with the workshop
notes from which they were derived, were published for stakeholders
to view on a project website, and members of the MMC team were
involved in the QA and sign-off of the requirements along with
the project board and other relevant stakeholder bodies (eg CoPMED
steering group for specialty recruitment).
8. In addition to the workshops, MTAS team
members and MMC team members were in attendance at various meetings
on specific topics throughout the project, organised by others,
eg DH and the COPMeD Steering Group.
9. User acceptance testing was managed jointly
with the Department and undertaken by volunteer groups of doctors
and deanery users. This included a MMC representative.
10. I trust this provides the clarification
requested. We would be pleased to assist further if required.
Mark Johnston
Managing Director
11 January 2008
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