Ming Tang and the three new chairs of the Digital Well being Networks Advisory Panels have welcomed the federal government’s 10 12 months well being plan, nevertheless the chairs have recognised the problem and questioned how precisely the ambitions can be delivered.
Tang co-chaired the ten 12 months well being plan working group and led the federated knowledge platform (FDP), one of many NHS’ main transformation programmes.
Now interim chief digital and data officer (CDIO) at NHS England, she is going to headline Digital Well being Summer time Faculties as nationwide keynote.
Following the publication of the 10 12 months plan, Tang mentioned:
“The Plan units daring ambitions – not simply to digitise providers, however to revamp care round individuals’s lives.
“From the imaginative and prescient of a Single Affected person Document to the transformation of the NHS App into a real well being companion, maximising the FDP which helps us be a part of up knowledge to higher plan, handle and coordinate the supply of care.
“We’re additionally laying the foundations to harness AI safely, strengthen knowledge sharing, and unlock well being knowledge for analysis that brings advantages again to the general public sooner.
“There’s rather a lot to do to ship this transformation – however in the present day marks a pivotal second. Digital and knowledge are central to the NHS of the long run and the three shifts of healthcare, permitting us to enhance the well being outcomes of the nation.”
An all-female line-up of Networks advisory panel chairs had been elected for the primary time final month, with a brand new two-year time period till 2027 commencing. Right here’s what every needed to say in regards to the plan:
Chief Scientific Data Officer (CCIO) Advisory Panel chair
Penny Kechagioglou, chief scientific data officer (CCIO), deputy chief medical officer, marketing consultant scientific oncologist, College Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Belief, mentioned:
“I welcome the NHS 10 12 months well being plan which advocates for a neighbourhood well being mannequin, supported by a single well being file, optimisation of the NHS App for acute and continual sickness administration in addition to larger citizen engagement with regards to well being and care.
“It’s an bold plan which focuses on prevention, extra entry to entrance door and first care providers in addition to strengthening the usage of digital instruments and AI to help entrance line workers and sufferers.
“As a clinician and DHN CCIO AP chair, I’m trying ahead to supporting the supply of the digital element of the plan.”
Chief Data Officer (CIO) Advisory Panel chair
Amy Freeman, chief digital data officer, College Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Belief, mentioned:
“The ten 12 months well being plan units a welcome path for the way forward for the NHS — one by which digital transformation, knowledge empowerment, and patient-centric applied sciences play a defining position.
“As chair of the Digital Well being CIO Advisory Panel, I strongly help the plan’s ambition to shift from analogue to digital and from illness to prevention. These are long-held priorities for the digital management group throughout the NHS.
“However we should even be life like in regards to the problem of delivering this imaginative and prescient in opposition to a backdrop of serious reductions in back-office budgets — together with digital, knowledge and expertise features.
“The drive to do extra with much less just isn’t new, however the scale of what’s now anticipated — modernising infrastructure, rolling out superior AI, enhancing interoperability, and safeguarding affected person knowledge can’t be achieved with out enough and sustained funding in digital capability.
“Digital is now not a help perform — it’s a frontline enabler of higher care, and it needs to be funded and ruled accordingly.
“Our group stands prepared to assist flip this plan into tangible deliverables, however doing so would require a shared understanding that reducing digital assets in the present day dangers undermining the very transformation the NHS is striving to realize.
“As we glance to the following decade, I stay optimistic—however clear-eyed. With the correct alignment of ambition and funding, we are able to ship a future NHS that’s extra agile, extra inclusive, and finally extra sustainable.”
Chief Nursing Data Officer (CNIO) Advisory Panel chair
Hayley Grafton, chief nursing data officer, College Hospitals of Leicester NHS Belief, mentioned:
“I’m actually inspired by the ambition and patient-centred focus of the ten 12 months plan. It’s refreshing to see digital transformation as a basic enabler of higher, extra equitable care and one of many key shifts.
“As digital nurse leaders, we’ve lengthy referred to as for the NHS to maintain tempo with technological change and never path behind it and this plan reveals a transparent intent to do exactly that.
“Nevertheless, the large query stays: how will this be delivered in observe? The extra funding is welcomed however what this implies in actual phrases for the entrance line can also be but to be seen.
“The plan units out the ‘what’—however we now want readability on the ‘how’. Funding, workforce reform (together with enhancing digital abilities) and system-wide buildings should align if we’re to show these ambitions into actuality.”
Suppliers and suppose tanks within the UK well being expertise sector additionally welcomed the plan embracing innovation and recognising expertise as a key pillar for the way forward for the NHS, however equally some considerations had been raised round precisely how digital plans outlines will grow to be a actuality.
