From Crisis to Readiness: Designing Public Health Services During COVID
Shaped three national health services during the pandemic, including the user experience of asymptomatic COVID testing, improving access to anti-viral treatment and channel support readiness for future threats
Project 1: Antiviral Rollout – Service Blueprinting for the Clinically Vulnerable
🧭 Challenge
The UKHSA needed to deliver antiviral treatments quickly and efficiently to high-risk individuals during the pandemic. The service had to account for varied user journeys, shifting requirements, and operational dependencies.
🎯 What I Did
Developed a detailed end-to-end service blueprint focused on the clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) and adult social care user groups.
Mapped user journeys, risks, mitigations, and KPIs.
Led rapid risk assessments across the user journey and coordinated multidisciplinary input to identify CX gaps and priorities.
Conducted rapid usability testing of key service touchpoints, delivering insights within two weeks.
Provided content and service design recommendations to improve clarity and accessibility of the NHS pre-treatment letter.
Identified opportunities to address exclusion and improve support via 119 and other non-digital channels.
✨ How It Helped
The blueprint aligned delivery teams, surfaced key risks early, and drove service and content improvements. While not all changes were implemented, the work led to clearer patient communications and a framework for iterating the antiviral experience.
Service Blueprint capturing clinically vulnerable and adult social care journey; risks and mitigations; user scenarios and KPIs
Project 2: Future Health Hazards – Speculative Design and Support Strategy
🧭 Challenge
UKHSA needed to anticipate how future health threats might disrupt services and what support citizens would need across channels
🎯 What I Did
Developed speculative use cases for a variety of emerging health hazards.
Facilitated co-design workshops to build narratives and define user stories.
Designed a channel-agnostic customer support model to ensure future readiness.
Outlined a channel strategy that accounted for accessibility, responsiveness, and scale.
✨ How It Helped
The speculative design framework enabled UKHSA to plan proactively, equipping the organisation with flexible tools to respond to uncertainty.
Future health hazard use cases and corresponding user stories
Project 3: Asymptomatic Testing – Refining the National Service Model
🧭 Challenge
With widespread asymptomatic testing, UKHSA needed a streamlined and user-friendly model to support reporting and compliance.
🎯 What I Did
Partnered with user researchers to map the full service journey.
Identified friction points, inefficiencies, and drop-off areas.
Proposed a restructured model to enhance clarity and ease of reporting.
✨ How It Helped
The revised service model improved user experience, reduced confusion, and helped support public health goals by making testing and reporting more accessible and actionable.
Across all three projects, I helped embed service design into urgent health responses—balancing rapid delivery with strategic design thinking to build services that were resilient, inclusive, and ready for the future.