The Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) and Digital Health have launched a partnership to support NHS and social care leaders in the digital transformation of health and care.

The collaboration will see Digital Health, host of Digital health Networks, and the PRSB work closely to help promote the development and adoption of standards amongst health and social care leaders as a key enabler to sharing information digitally between care providers.

Digital Health Networks form the UK’s largest health IT leadership network, focused on collaboration and best practice exchange.  The member-directed networks, which focus on supporting local NHS digital leaders to collaborate, are delivered though an online community platform, best practice webinars, regional events and an annual Summer School and Leadership Summit.

The PRSB represents more than 750,000 frontline clinicians and professionals through its member organisations, which include the royal colleges, professional bodies and patient groups.

Specifically, members of Digital Health Networks, which is made up of over 2,000 chief clinical information officers (CCIOs), chief information officers (CIOs) and chief nursing information officers (CNIOs), will be able to contribute to developing the PRSB’s standards for information held in care records, ensuring they are fit for purpose, and promote their adoption across the health and care system.

The partnership officially launches at the Digital Health Leadership Summit taking place on 15-16 March in Bristol, where the chief executive of the PRSB, Lorraine Foley, will be a panellist in the ‘Smarter buying for interoperability and open platforms’ workshop on day two.

The PRSB will also help to shape future Digital Health events, particularly the CCIO, CIO and CNIO Summer Schools, by playing an active role on a new events programme board.

Lorraine Foley, chief executive of the PRSB said: “CCIOs, CIOs and CNIOs are in the driving seat of transforming the NHS and social care to a digital service. We want to support them in leading this transformation and help them reach out to clinical and professional colleagues, so that vital patient information can be shared easily to improve quality, safety and integrated working, and so that patients can engage more fully in their care.”

Jon Hoeksma, chief executive of Digital Health, said: “The role of standards is fundamental to improving quality improvement and patient safety across health and care services, now more than ever.

“This new partnership with PRSB will provide our highly active network members with more guidance, support and dialogue across our events, networks and publishing channels, to drive better information sharing in health and care services.”

Earlier this month, Digital Health announced a partnership with the Chartered Institute for IT, on a series of events designed to help promote health informatics leaders.