Engagement
NHS Business Services Authority — Healthy Start Service
I provided design leadership on the NHSBSA Healthy Start Discovery, directing a cross-disciplinary UCD team to translate research insights into prioritised, actionable recommendations — bridging design, operations, and live service delivery.
Engagement objective
Healthy Start is a government service providing financial support to help pregnant women and families with young children buy healthy food and vitamins. The Discovery phase set out to understand how the service could better meet user needs and reduce operational friction across digital and live service teams. The key challenge was alignment — ensuring design insights were connected to delivery realities, and that recommendations were grounded in both user evidence and organisational feasibility.
What I set out to do
- Worked with senior stakeholders to evaluate and prioritise recommendations based on user impact, feasibility, and alignment with policy goals.
- Translated high-level opportunities into detailed epics and tasks, guiding UCD exploration and ensuring clarity of ownership and intent.
- Fostered close working relationships between the UCD and live service teams to eliminate duplication, share insight, and maintain a consistent service vision.
- Identified inefficiencies in agile delivery and siloed communication, introducing ways of working that improved cohesion, visibility, and decision-making.
What the work produced
- A clear, prioritised roadmap of recommendations for Alpha development.
- Improved collaboration between live and design teams, reducing rework and knowledge gaps.
- Strengthened design governance and laid the foundations for a more efficient Alpha phase.
- Service enhancements grounded in real user needs and evidence.
Service disciplines involved