The Government is making inadequate progress on vital commitments
to digitise the NHS, an independent panel of experts has found.
The digitisation of health and social care is essential to
deliver the promise of improved and better integrated health and
social care services, said the Government in a policy paper
published in 2022.
Commitments evaluated by the Expert Panel include the delivery of
integrated health and care records, the roll-out of the NHS app
and ensuring a workforce had the necessary digital skills.
Despite some encouraging progress, the Expert Panel found that
key Government commitments on workforce and the use of patient
information were either not met or were not on track to be met.
The Panel found that overall progress towards improving the
digital capabilities of the NHS was too slow, and often lacked
support and funding. The experts concluded that social care was
often missed out in commitments, stifling progress across the
health and care system.
The Expert Panel notes its concern that Ministers’ ambition to
digitise the NHS will not succeed without an effective workforce
strategy to train, recruit and retain sufficient specialised
digital staff.
Professor Dame Jane Dacre, Chair of the Expert Panel, said:
“What is particularly disappointing is that the
Government recognises that the digitisation of the NHS is
essential to bring about real benefits to patients, for example
by helping them to monitor and manage long-term health conditions
independently.
“Yet time and again, promises have been made but not
delivered, hampering wider progress. For example, using data
sharing to improve research and planning, which we’ve rated as
inadequate. However, worryingly, we have seen no clear plan
for how the Government will address public and provider concerns
regarding sharing personal data, which is crucial to address in
order for this to be successful.
“We heard about issues with interoperability between
systems and providers, making it difficult for all parts of the
system to communicate effectively, leading to delays and
efficiency losses.”
“Evidence also highlights challenges in recruiting,
retaining and building the specialised digital workforce, yet
Ministers have delayed a strategy focused on delivering a digital
workforce.
“The aspirations to transform the NHS, supported by the
right digital foundations, are to be applauded, however, our
report finds evidence mainly of opportunities missed.”
ENDS
, Chair of the Health and
Social Committee, said:
“These important findings by our panel of experts will
support of the work of the Health and Social Care Committee which
is currently examining digital transformation in the
NHS.
“Integration of the NHS with social care services is
vital so it is concerning that these care settings appear to be
frequently overlooked.
“The Panel’s detailed work provides evidence of the
Government’s overall ‘inadequate’ approach to its commitments to
digitise the NHS and will feed into the Committee’s work, shaping
the recommendations we make to Ministers.”
ENDS
Expert Panel ratings:
Overall rating ‘inadequate’ for nine commitments across four
policy areas: the care of patients and people in receipt of
social care, the health of the population, the cost and
efficiency of care and the digital literacy of the workforce and
the digital workforce.
Progress against four vital commitments of nine evaluated rated
‘inadequate’:
- Deliver an integrated health and
care record for all patients (within the policy area of care of
patients and people in receipt of social care),
- Ensuring public and professional
support for the use of general practice (GP) data for secondary
uses (within the policy area of health of the population), and
- Two commitments in the policy area
of workforce digital literacy and the digital workforce, which
together aim to ensure there is a sufficient number of staff with
the requisite knowledge and skills to implement digitisation
across the health and social care system.
Overall ratings of ‘requires improvement’ for remaining five
commitments:
- Roll-out of the NHS App and the use
of digital home monitoring (both within the area of the care of
patients and people in receipt of social care),
- Use of patient data for research
and planning (within the area of the health of the population),
and
- Two commitments relating to the
purchasing of digital technologies (within the area of cost and
efficiency of care).
Please see tables from page 11 of Expert Panel’s
Report for full details
Expert Panel Chaired
by: Professor
Dame Jane Dacre, Professor of Medical Education at
University College London, a consultant physician and
rheumatologist, and a former President of the Royal College of
Physicians. Full details here.
Note to editors:
The Health and Social Care Committee established
the Expert Panel to conduct independent evaluations of Government
commitments in areas of healthcare policy and enhance Committee
scrutiny. Evaluations are published as Reports with CQC-style
ratings from “inadequate” to “outstanding” against specific
pledges on a range of policy areas with a final overall rating
given.
