Digital health and care strategy: enabling, connecting and empowering

Transition Process

Domain F

Previous eHealth strategies have successfully enabled the delivery of certain health services and certain health information to be shared or accessed on a regional and/or national basis. Some of these will be essential to the effective operation of the national digital platform in the future, and most are essential for the continued delivery of care today but may not be suited to the way we want care to be delivered in the future.

The transition from the current position will be challenging, will take time, and will require significant input from delivery partners. It will be important to take a bi-modal approach to ensure that existing services continue to operate effectively and that staff can continue to work and provide care without impact.

In Local Government too, work is required which is already underway via the Local Government Digital Office. This is to ensure that social care systems are fit for the future and appropriately linked with health, and is also to support the significant impact of the impending switch over of the UK's telephony system to a digital network and its impact on analogue telecare services.

We will work with eHealth and clinical leads, NHS NSS and Local Government Digital Office ( COSLA/ Health and Social Care Partnerships ) to plan and manage the transition process and, through our new governance, will review existing projects and investment to ensure best value and alignment to future direction.

We will:

• Develop and roll-out an assessment of digital maturity across health and social care services, identify areas for improvement and support, and establish a process for regular review and update.
• Ensure that all current and future services are secure, resilient and adhere to the specifications and standards set at a national level.
• Work with the Scottish Government's Digital Connectivity team Digital Scotland ^[13] and build on the opportunities of R100, networks such as the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) ^[14] and the roll out of Wi-Fi to address connectivity and bandwidth challenges.
• Support the transition from analogue to digital telecare for health and care providers.
• Develop and oversee a technical transition plan to ensure that our current technical environment is securely and timeously transitioned to fit with the new National Digital Platform, where appropriate.