Better together

Lessons from RAP Drop-ins

Rhian Davies

2025-12-04

RAP Drop Ins

• RAP: Reproducible Analytical Pipelines
• One hour online every other Wednesday 10am
• Facilitated by The Strategy Unit

• Mention origins of this - used to be hosted by NHSE
• Emphasise that we facilitate - we’re not there to answer questions but to encourage discussion

Who is it for?

• Open to anyone working in the NHS with an interest in RAP
• No coding experience required - managers welcome!
• Discussions captured on GitHub to share learning more widely

• Attendance: 10 attendees on average
• Background of attendees very varied - NHS England, CSUs, Trusts, Scientists, Analysts
• We also plan everything using GitHub

Common themes

• Lots of brilliant individual work happening across the NHS
• Organisational barriers are widespread
• Questions around upskilling
• How to deploy data science products, given limited infrastructure?
• Concerns around safety of data

Can we solve these problems once, for the community?

Some wins

• A safe space for people to discuss issues and barriers
• Pulling together use cases
• Making connections with others and working together
• Summary of discussions on GitHub: building a shared community resource

RAP Code Review Buddies Network

• Every 3 months, you will be randomly paired up with someone else in the network.
• As a pair, you will arrange to meet up online and talk through some code you have written.
• You can then ask each other questions about the code and offer constructive comments.

Is the network for me?

• Written any code for your job in the last 3 months?

• Any language

• All stages of RAP welcome

• No code review experience needed

• Guidance is provided

Sounds awesome, how do I sign up?

• RAP drop-in sign up
• RAP Code Review Buddies Network sign up
• Guidance on our Wiki on GitHub
• Get involved 😊