Supporting & Empowering Scotlands Citizens: National Action Plan for Technology Enabled Care

Governance & Delivery

The Scottish Government will continue to provide funding to NHS 24 to enable the Scottish Centre for Telehealth & Telecare ( SCTT) to deliver its remit on our behalf, namely:

• support the development of technology enabled health and care services in local health & social care delivery organisations across Scotland (including supporting the Government-directed TEC Programme); and
• represent Scotland's health and care interests in technology enabled care internationally, with a view to attracting inward investment, expertise and programme/project opportunities as well as building alliances and consortia.

Working with the Scottish Funding Council, through the Innovation Centres Programme, the Scottish Government will support the development of the long-term business case for the Digital Health & Care Institute ( DHI) within Strathclyde University. The DHI will remain as our lead Innovation Partner, tasked with linking civic society, industry and academia to ensure that Scotland's economy continues to grow, and we are in a position to make to the most of improvements in digital health technologies to better health outcomes.

Governance Review

Over the lifetime of the previous Telehealth & Telecare Delivery Plan, a National Telehealth & Telecare Advisory Board provided leadership, guidance and advice on the national direction of telehealth & telecare activity ^[15] . This oversight, and recognition of some of the gaps, led to the creation of the Technology Enabled Care Programme, which has its own Programme Board. This provides rigorous governance oversight of all funded activity through the TEC Programme.

Innovation and opportunities for inward investment and market growth is overseen by the Digital Health & Care Innovation Partnership ( DHCIP), as one of Scotland's Health Innovation Partnerships.

These separate, but linked, bodies have been instrumental in driving us to where we are today. However, as we move towards a more integrated Digital Health & Care Strategy, we will take the opportunity to simplify the governance landscape and effectively integrate activity with the various eHealth governance bodies. This will enable us to create a more straightforward governance arrangement covering Digital Health & Care in the round, from innovation through to piloting then mainstream service delivery.

This review of the governance framework will be a key part of the development of the integrated Digital Health & Care Strategy.