Digital Futures document queries: FOI release

Information requested

1. Can you confirm or deny if the Scottish Government is working with and or adopting WEF policies in Scotland?

2. Can you tell me who was responsible for creating the following document? https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-digital-health-care-strategy/documents/

Response

It may be helpful if I respond to your second question first which will provide context to your first question.

The document enquired, Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Strategy, was produced by the Scottish Government's Digital Health and Care Directorate in partnership with COSLA, and was developed through extensive stakeholder engagement. This included consultation and collaboration with health and social care partners in the statutory, third, innovation, academic and private sectors.

The Scottish Government source that you refer to was academic research carried out by the University of Strathclyde’s Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre and published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2019. See Introducing Care 4.0: An Integrated Care Paradigm Built on Industry 4.0 Capabilities (mdpi.com). You can see from that journal article that there are multiple publications and sources of Industry 4.0 as a concept, including but not limited to the World Economic Forum.

With this in mind, and to answer your first question, while we will draw from current sector developments and information to inform our thinking from a variety of sources and organisations, having conducted the necessary search across our Directorates, we can confirm that the Scottish Government is not specifically adopting World Economic Forum policies in Scotland.

About FOI

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