Creating the UK Health Security Agency

The challenge 

In October 2021, plans for the new UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) emerged, requiring the seamless migration of 14,000 users from separate organisations like Public Health England (PHE), Test & Trace, and the Joint Biosecurity Centre. This complex process, amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, demanded meticulous planning and accuracy from the Burendo and migration team.  

Our approach 

We began with a comprehensive discovery phase, leveraging our business analysts, and partnering with PHE to map and identify over 600 potential migration risks across critical public health applications and COVID-19 infrastructure. 

Collaboratively, we defined the project scope, assembled a dedicated discovery team, and conducted robust stakeholder assessments. Regular change impact assessments and roadmaps ensured user experience remained a top priority. Employing monthly Statements of Work, we provided PHE with maximum flexibility in a dynamic and politically charged environment. This allowed us to seamlessly adapt to rapid scope changes. 

Our analysis provided detailed insights into migration risks and dependencies, empowering the Senior Responsible Officer to make informed decisions regarding the potential impact on the national COVID-19 response. 

To ensure the migration went as smoothly as possible for the new UKHSA team, we sent over 73,000 emails, held 82 Q&A drop-in sessions and set up a dedicated support service where over 500 tickets are resolved on the same day.  

The results

After addressing application dependencies and completing a comprehensive remediation program, we successfully migrated all 14,000 users by March 31st, 2022. New capabilities were available for UKHSA such as ServiceNow – a self-serve knowledge hub, and accessibility services such as transcripts on Microsoft Teams.  

Feedback from the team was overwhelmingly positive with comments such as “Easy to follow guide pre and post migration, no issues what-so-ever” and “Overall, a quick and smooth experience. The instructions were really clear”