Recommendation 3

Without a proper implementation plan, the Department and NHSX cannot be sure that the £8.1 billion of taxpayers’ money being invested in the digital transformation programme will deliver value for money. The Department’s 2018 Vision for digital, data and technology is not an implementation plan as it does not set out how the NHS will deliver its ambitions in practice. It does not include a timeframe or plan for achieving interoperability, which NHSX acknowledges is an “extremely complex” process and could take “years”. The Department asserts that it will take a “blended” approach to planning, which will take place both nationally and locally by NHS systems and individual organisations. However, the Department has not demonstrated that national and local initiatives will be sufficient to meet the overall ambition. Furthermore, the national organisations have not yet put in place the planned levers and incentives to encourage trusts and other parts of the NHS to take the appropriate action on the ground. This will make it harder to ensure that local organisations are carrying out transformation in a way that is consistent with the national strategy and will benefit patients and staff. Recommendation: NHSX should, as a matter of urgency, publish an implementation plan for meeting its ambitions for transforming digital services. This should: • Clearly set out actions required to transform digital services and how it will assess progress in enabling organisations to interact effectively to improve care. • Include the incentives and levers that improve the application of national standards for interoperability within and between local NHS organisations. • Identify and prioritise those areas where the digitisation of services will add the greatest value to patients and clinicians.