Ming Tang: NHSE is moving away from electronic patient records

NHS England is moving its focus from electronic patient record adoption to implementing business change, said Ming Tang, interim chief digital and information officer.

Speaking at the HETT Leadership Summit in Leeds on 12 February, Tang shared details of the NHS Frontline Productivity programme, which will succeed the Frontline Digitisation programme in April.

In the opening keynote, Tang said: “We’re starting to move away from electronic patient records because largely that portfolio is done. So there’s some money spent on finishing that off. 

“But a lot of this is about implementation of business change and how we work together with the regions – looking at not just bringing the digital tech piece, but also how we create the business change through the transformation and the benefits realisation.”

Leaked slides, shared on LinkedIn, revealed that the new programme will have a wider scope, with added focus on infrastructure, cyber security and change.

Tang said that frontline productivity is one of a “portfolio of business cases” which have been presented to the Treasury to drive the three major shifts in the government’s 10 year health plan.

Other business case themes include cyber improvement; establishing operational excellence; transforming and connecting care; core infrastructure; and transforming patient-facing services.

Cyber improvement

Tang, who is leaving NHS England in April, described cyber improvement as a “must have” to tackle “one of our biggest threats”.

She added that as well as investing in infrastructure, it was important to ensure “that we work as a connected NHS system”. 

Under the cyber programme, NHS central teams will provide surveillance tools and there will be a focus on “fundamental security” such as two-factor authentication.

“Based on the threat analysis that we have centrally, we really need to focus on some of that movement, making sure that we connect the dots and particularly those services we’ve neglected in the past,” she said.

‘Localised prioritisation’

Tang said that NHSE will “work with the regions”, so that there can be “localised prioritisation”, adding that the NHSE/Department of Health and Social Care joint executive board will prioritise some tech investments “to get a return on the investment for productivity”.

“So we’re actually moving much more to a cadence of showing us the value – making sure the technology is adopted.

“We’re not just going to roll out pieces of tech.

“We’re not going to give out money without a return on investment clause in it, which will allow local systems to decide what they want to invest in, but with a return on investment,” she said.

Tang urged healthcare leaders to work together to make digital transformation possible.  

“This transformation is not going to happen if we work in isolation and we continue in our silos, so it’s really important as we move forward that we actually start connecting as a system,” she said.

Tang previously criticised leaders for allowing their egos to get in the way of tech adoption – appearing to allude to trusts which are not using the NHS federated data platform.