Recommendation 21

NHSE told us that integration and record sharing across the NHS system features heavily within the 10 Year Health Plan, aiming to address a key weakness of the current system. NHSE said that digital transformation in the NHS presents unique challenges, compared to other healthcare systems, as there are no other systems that are as comprehensive as the NHS.47 NHSE told us that a lot of technology is now being made available to the NHS and time will need to be spent determining what the role of the centre of government is in adopting new technology, including whether the NHS moves away from central capital procurement towards allowing local organisations to procure on a smaller scale. We were told by NHSE that modern technology is “cheaper and easier to procure, but [NHSE’s] processes currently do not support that.”48 44 Q 73 45 Q 41 46 Q 13 47 Q 84 48 Q 84 13