NHS Tech Agenda Accelerated
Plans to absorb NHS Digital into NHS England are being brought forward to early January 2023, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has announced.
This is an important step as it places one NHS entity in charge of all the data and digital technology for the service, meaning that information silos currently in place can be dismantled. Not only will this streamline the provision of care on the front line, it will provide researchers and NHS partners with the prospect of better, more joined up information about further innovation.
The DHSC has already laid out how access to data will be provided via Secure Data Environments.This provides some practical context to the Government's Life Sciences Vision and its Data Saves Lives strategy, which promotes use cases including:
- finding members of the public to join research and innovation studies
- accessing NHS, social care, genetic/genomic, individual-generated and health inequality data to explore hypotheses and pursue new areas of research
- receiving clear guidance on how to work with the healthcare system when creating or deploying data-driven technologies
Key Takeaways from the Change
Speaking at the 2021 PING Conference, Claire Foreman, Director of Medicines Policy and Strategy at NHS England and Improvement, discussed how through working with integrated care systems the NHS could be a driver for innovation. This was reiterated by Matthew Whitty, the Chief Executive of the Accelerated Access Collaborative at the 2022 PING Conference, where he talked about using the NHS as a test bed for innovation.
The benefits of having NHS data and digital technology services under the control of one entity are clear and should provide more uniformity and continuity to several areas of the service. The fact that this merger has been expedited is a positive sign for patients, care providers, researchers and innovators alike.