Following the Wade-Geary review – which labelled the NHS as being “too far away” from being digitally transformed – the Health and Social Care Committee has called for NHS England to produce a roadmap on digitising the NHS as a matter of urgency.
The inquiry will examine how successful the Government has been so far in moving towards a digital approach to healthcare in the NHS and what steps are needed to improve this in the future. It will also seek to address issues surrounding public trust, as research has shown that a third of the population are sceptical about digitization and have concerns regarding data security.
As part of this, the Health and Social Care Committee are asking for interested organisations or companies to complete written submissions encompassing one or more of the following points by Friday 10 June:
- How can the Government communicate the benefits of digital approaches in healthcare to the public and provide assurances as to the security of their data?
- What progress has been made in dealing with the proliferation of legacy IT systems across the NHS?
- How do IT platforms used in NHS hospitals in England compare with those used in hospitals in the United States?
- How can the Government effectively foster co-operation between the NHS and the private sector to both develop and implement innovation in healthcare?
- What other functions could and should be performed on the NHS App?
- What progress has been made in digitising health and care records for interoperability, such that they can be accessed by professionals across primary, secondary, and social care?
- What progress has been made on making data captured for care available for clinical research through digital transformation?
- Specifically, have lessons been learned from the success of the streamlined and accelerated nature of the RECOVERY trial, as pioneered during the pandemic by Professor Sir Martin Landray?
- What should be the timescale for incorporating genomic data into patients’ medical records?
- What are the principal considerations that should be taken into account in this context and what additional training of the workforce will be needed to achieve this?
- How can the creation or exacerbation of digital inequalities be avoided when implementing digital transformation?
Member companies can submit their evidence by accessing this link.
