techUK’s response to Joining up care for people, places and populations white paper

The ‘Integration white paper’, published February 2022, set out the Government’s approach to integrating health and social care, an ambition set out by Secretary of State last September, when he outlined that the Government would be looking to work with citizens and stakeholders to produce a “comprehensive national strategy” to take integration between health and social care “to a new level”.

The white paper contains ambitious and welcome aims in several areas, including:

Unlocking the power of data, involving each ICS implementing a population health platform by 2025, and putting in place systems to combine data between health and care to provide a real-time picture of NHS care.
Social care, with the ambition that shared care records be in place by 2024, the adoption of digital social care records, and a new suite of standards for adult social care.
Integrated Care Systems, involving the creation of a single role accountable for shared outcomes in each place, the need for digital investment plans, mandatory reporting of outcomes and a third board set to focus on services at ‘place’ level.
Funding and procurement, involving the alignment and pooling of budgets, Government powers to intervene and encourage disruption, and purchasing digital investment at an ICS-level.

techUK welcomed the aspirations set out in the white paper, which recognised that digital technology has the potential to alleviate pressures, support staff, and help tackle the COVID-19 backlog. However, in responding to the questions regarding Chapter 4 on Digital and Data, techUK highlighted some of the challenges that must be urgently addressed to meet the ambitious timelines set out by Government.

Firstly, industry would like to see further clarity around timelines for delivery and expectations from suppliers, particularly with regards to population health management systems, shared care records, digitising social care, and the financial and decision-making remit of local authorities.

Secondly, one of the biggest challenges that remains is around the lack of interoperability in health and social care. techUK would therefore welcome an emphasis on the actions needed to achieve wholescale integration of systems within and between both sectors. Place-led transformation and innovation is only possible if systems talk to each other, and local services have the confidence and frameworks to share data securely and effectively. techUK would like to see the White Paper go further in its provisions for enabling data sharing between health and social care.

Further to these concerns, techUK highlighted fears that the current approach of the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) will stifle innovation. This is owing to the ‘one size fits all’ approach that fails to account for the wide variance in products and services in this space.

We look forward to seeing how the Government responds to and incorporates industry feedback. In the meantime, techUK are working to gather member views on an upcoming publication looking at recommendations to Integrated Care Systems. If you would like to be involved, please email [email protected], or get involved in our Interoperability Working Group and Social Care Working Group.