20 Apr 2022

techUK feed into the Digital Health and Care Plan

Earlier this year, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid, announced the publication of the ‘first ever comprehensive digital health and care plan’ in Spring. The publication will build on the NHS’s Long-Term Plan, looking to Digitise (via EPR adoption), Connect (through the formation of Integrated Care Systems) and Transform (via NHS app registrations and functions).

Following this announcement, techUK held a workshop with the NHS Transformation Directorate to provide members with the opportunity to feed into the upcoming plan. We heard from Emma Doyle, Head of Strategy at the Transformation Directorate, who outlined that the publication would be a mixture of a vision, discussion paper, and delivery plan. Crucially, the plan will not contain any new commitments, and is best viewed as a ‘what’s next’ document that will allow the NHS and the digital health technology industry to build upon existing policies.

With existing commitments around establishing a base level of digital maturity due to be implemented by 2024/5, the question asked of industry in this session was: ‘If by the end of 2024/25, the health and care system was digitised and connected, how should transformed care be different for people and what do we need in place to deliver this vision?’

techUK members provided insight and recommendations on the following areas:

Interoperability

  • Ensuring that systems can easily talk to each other
  • Working towards the seamless transfer of information between health and social care & private providers and the NHS
  • Using data to tackle the lack of capacity within the NHS, and better utilise the capability that exists in the digital health community

Strong leadership

  • Ensuring that challenges with regards to digital transformation within and between local authorities and the NHS are addressed
  • Helping leaders to understand the importance of digital plans and how best to implement them

Patient access and understanding around data

  • Enabling patient access to their own records and building a continuous dialogue with citizens about the use of this data
  • Ensuring holistic management of patient journeys
  • Working towards empathic technology that allows for a prescription-based model for digital therapeutics
  • Eventually being able to link and incorporate data people are gathering themselves via wearables

The need for better guidance, structure and funding

  • Gaining an understanding of what BAU will look like in 2025
  • Build a collective understanding of the importance of digital and achieve buy-in at executive level both within and between health and social care

If you would like to provide additional feedback, please reach out to [email protected].