NHS Python Community Board

21st June 2021 Meeting Summary

Board Members

Attendees

  • Alex Cheung - NHSE/I (Chair)
  • Dr Mark A. Bailey -Gloucestershire Royal Hospital
  • Haris Shuaib MPhys MSc MIPEM MFCI - Guy’s & St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust
  • Juan Adriano - Surrey and Borders Partnership NHSFoundation Trust
  • John O’Connell - NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit
  • Craig R. Shenton, PhD - NHSX
  • Mary Amanuel - NHSX
  • Arouba Zubair - NHSX
  • Jonathan Pearson, PhD - NHSX

Apologies

  • Sophie Williams, PhD -Barts Health NHS Trust

Agenda Items

  1. Welcome and Check-in
The Chair welcomed attendees to the board.
  1. Goals of the NHS Python Community
There was an open discussion on the purpose of the NHS Python community.

The goals and principles of the python community were updated as follows:

  - Promote the use of python in the healthcare by celebrating success and 
    recognising contributions across the community
    
  - Reduce barriers to entry by highlighting best practice with regard to 
    software, IT operations, security, and coding in the open
    
  - Open source and publish code to public GitHub repositories under appropriate 
    licences (such as MIT, OGLv3, and GPLv3) alongside suitable open datasets 
    or synthetic data so that our work can be further developed, re-used, and 
    improved upon by everyone in the community
    
  - Break down silos of expertise and improve technical communication and 
    collaboration across the NHS, health and social care sectors
    
  - Champion diversity, inclusion, and representation in tech by making coding 
    accessible to all members of the communityregardless of background or 
    current level of ability 
Once the terms of reference are agreed by the board, the goals and principles 
of the NHS Python Community will be uploaded to the website.
  1. Engagement and Communication Channels
The community is about building links, collaborating, getting rid of silos, 
and working towards members talking about and sharing their best-practice code.
Conferences and events, like show and tells, could be organised digitally 
and in-person in the near-future to share and celebrate success stories. 
Installing python has been an issue for many members; the possibility of having 
a meet up around how individuals have managed to set-up Python was discussed. 
In terms of communication at present, Slack for communications and MS Teams for 
events and meetings were agreed upon collectively. 
Additional ideas of content are encouraged - these can be suggested in Slack. 
At present, we have the Resources and Events tab where various python resources 
are shared. Alongside the Blogs, Code of Conduct, and Contact tabs.
  1. Terms of Reference
The Terms of Reference for the NHS Python Community board was created and is 
currently being signed-off by the Board. 
It has been proposed that board members will sit for a term of one year. 
The Board is seeking to find a PCN and ICS representation on the board
  1. Questions/AOB
The board closed with the following ideas that are still in discussion:
  - Terms of References 2021 - which will be signed digitally upon mutual agreement.
  - Collaborative Events
Next board meeting date: 27th July 2021