Details of non-functional requirements (NFRs) that describe system attributes such as security, reliability, maintainability, scalability, and usability

Security

Provider systems SHALL resist unauthorized, accidental or unintended usage and provide access only to legitimate users.

Please refer to the Security guidance page for technical details.

Volume and performance

Volumetric

Provider systems MUST meet the agreed volumetric performance targets. Please refer to the Volumetric guidance page for technical details.

Performance

Provider systems MUST meet the agreed response time performance targets. Please refer to the Performance guidance page for technical details.

Capacity

Provider systems MUST meet the agreed capacity requirements.

Scalability

Provider systems SHALL be designed to accommodate increased volumes, workloads and users.

Availability

Provider systems SHALL meet the agreed availability targets (service time and/or hours and planned downtime) as defined in the operational level agreement (OLA).

Recoverability

Provider systems SHALL meet the agreed recoverability targets as documented in the Operational Level Agreement (OLA).

Audit & provenance

Provider systems SHALL audit all API access and actions. Please refer to the cross organization audit and provenance page for technical details.

Maintainability

Provider systems SHALL be designed to optimise the ability of maintenance personnel to revise or enhance it.

Serviceability

Provider systems SHALL be designed so that technical support personnel are able to monitor and manage it in operation. In particular error messages presented to the end user MUST be clear, understandable and helpful.

Clinical Risk Management

Provider and consumer systems SHALL comply with NHS Digital Clinical Risk Management Standards, in particular DCB0160.

Data retention

Provider systems SHALL retain data in line with existing relevant Informational Governance and data protection regulation.

Usability

Provider and consumer systems SHOULD follow the ISO 13407 / ISO 9241-210

Accessibility

Provider and consumer systems MUST maintain a compliance of minimum Double “A” of the WCAG 1.0 (or equivalent in WCAG 2.0) or, as stipulated by UK Government guidelines, for all user interfaces. Please see the ,Web Accessibility Initiative for more details.

Please refer to the UEC Technical Standards for details.

Deployment

Provider systems SHALL release a new major version of their UEC Booking API alongside a previous major version, until such time as consumers have migrated to the new major version.

Provider systems SHOULD release a new minor or patch version, replacing the previous minor or patch version.

Provider systems SHALL be deployed with the provider APIs enabled by default.

Provider systems MAY provide a mechanism for a data controller at an organisation to choose to globally disable/enable the provider APIs (that is, turn on/off the overall UEC Booking technical capability).