NHS England’s CIO Will Smart has said the NHS needs at least another £4.2 billion of IT investment to finish the job of digitisation.
Speaking at the EHi Live trade show on Tuesday Smart said: “We got £4.2 billion a couple of years ago, we need at least that again if we are to finish the job.”
Some £4.2 billion was committed to NHS IT investment over five years by Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt in February 2016, but little of the money has yet found its way directly to NHS trusts or STPs.
A total of £385 million of the £4.2 billion has since been re-directed into the flagship Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) programme.
Smart said for further additional investment to be secured the NHS needed to be able to show to Treasury that existing investment was delivering big improvements in productivity, efficiency and patient safety.
He said that the GDE programme was key to demonstrating the benefits of investment in digitisation.
“If we look at GDEs that is a real example of us saying to organisations ‘here is some money, we think you can deliver excellence’,” said Smart.
He acknowledged that the GDE programme has been divisive. “There has been some criticism that we are giving to the haves I think in some senses that is a fair critique.”
“But it will be a success at the end if we have 17 trusts at HIMSS level 7, and 17 further fast followers, and have begun to spread digitisation across the NHS.”
Smart added that the GDE and fast follower programmes were intended to eventually drive up the digital maturity of all NHS organisations.
Asked whether any of the GDEs are yet world class, Smart joked that he would take the party line: “I’m not saying any of the GDEs are world class. The Royal Free is of course exemplary [Smart’s former trust]… But we have some organisations verging on greatness Cambridge approaching HIMSS level 7.”
He then concluded: “But I think it would be naïve to say we are at world class standard yet.”
NHS England’s director for operations and information Matthew Swindells recently came out saying, “the best hospitals in the UK, in terms of using IT, are mediocre by international standards“.
Smart said that a fundamental challenge remained to drive up adoption of local innovation: “Still lots of people doing great stuff but not being spread and adopted – not every problem is a new problem. My challenge to everyone in this room is to change the way we think.”
Smart called for NHS IT leaders to stand-up and follow.
“We now need to develop followership. Something may have been invented somewhere else but it can be good enough for me. So, whether it’s the GDE blueprints, or something developed through lived experience, we have to perhaps a bit less proud and centred on ourselves.”
To achieve a step change in spreading innovation and adopting work done elsewhere, the NHS England CIO said it required “a much better ability to communicate the great things we need”, “a need to support local risk taking and innovation”, “technical architectures that enable the transfer of knowledge and innovation” and a drive to “standards, innovation and interoperability.”
4 November 2017 @ 11:49
The more public sector keep appointing leaders who have NO CLUE or background in digital and technology the more they will fail to dèliver no matter how much money they spent. The bring in a new NHS CIO with no experience in this field. Completely pointless and why it will be a disaster.
3 November 2017 @ 16:48
It would have been nice to see any of the original £4.2 billion that was promised and has never showed up.
3 November 2017 @ 08:50
Let’s link together a few themes doing the rounds: there’s not enough innovation, Trusts don’t take risks, more money is needed for Digital. How about spreading the money around all Trusts “equally”? No process, no bidding, no technology funds that take months to bid for and then get released in March (or disappear all together). Just ring-fence funding at Trust level for transformation through systems,and innovation – not forgetting the underlying infrastructure that supports it.
There may be exceptions but most Trust IT departments do have ideas, do know what to spend their money on (wisely), they do engage with clinicians and the Board. The centre should set standards, negotiate the best deals with suppliers, “encourage” interoperabililty between them and publicise best practice. Trusts will collaborate and share systems/procurements where helpful and will work on integration (diagnostic clouds, portals and shared care records have been around a long time in some regions without prompting).
£4.2b is great – hand it out and don’t over control it. Some will get waster but then that’s probably true of some of the money that has been controlled (some of NPfIT, Technology fund and maybe GDE).
3 November 2017 @ 09:20
and of course the price people pay for software varies not by the scale of the purchase but by the means of the buyer – so (for example) if you are a national buyer you pay well over the odds (e.g. NPfIT) if you are a humble trust you get a much better price…just sayin…
3 November 2017 @ 00:50
If it’s estimated that it’ll take two years and £4.2 billion, then it’s likely that it will take four years and £8.4 billion.
The larger the project the more likely the scope hasn’t been fully assessed.
2 November 2017 @ 23:42
We coud prioritise a few things which clearly add value at low cost, like this https://youtu.be/wU0GHkevnU0 . Saves more than it costs.
2 November 2017 @ 16:15
we can actually do projects that have a return on investment you know…e.g. digitise medical records which would save the acute sector in England £300m per annum in space, pay and consumables…just sayin…
3 November 2017 @ 06:51
That’s a rather conservative estimate?
And a further 1 million spent on setting a few standards on paperless NHS would have paved the way for document sharing between all trusts and helped prevent millions needed to correct poorly implemented paperless solutions.
Such forward thinking would allow projects in ten or so years such as the national record locator service (erm. …. )