Key Takeaways
- The digitising social care programme is on track to have 80% of care providers with digital social care records by March 2025.
- Plans include establishing new technology standards in care and integrating health and social care services.
- By February 2025, all assured systems will activate GP Connect, enhancing data access for care providers.
Progress on Digital Social Care Records
The digitising social care programme aims to have 80% of care providers equipped with digital social care records by March 2025, as confirmed by Peter Skinner, director of NHS England’s Transformation Directorate. In a blog post dated January 21, 2025, Skinner acknowledged the programme’s alignment with this revised target following a missed deadline in March 2024.
Skinner emphasized that this target marks “only the beginning” of the programme’s goals. Future efforts will concentrate on two critical areas: setting enhanced standards for technology usage in care and facilitating better integration of health and social care services. The programme team plans to collaborate with various partners to categorize technologies, offering guidance on their applications and effects.
Each technology category will come with a list of essential functionalities and applicable standards. Subsequently, a compliant solutions list will be provided, ensuring care providers can implement technologies effectively. A key focus will be on integrating systems, where Skinner noted the importance of linking social care records with health data. This integration aims to change the approach to care delivery, allowing earlier interventions when individuals encounter challenges at home.
Beginning in February 2025, all assured digital social care record systems will enable GP Connect. This feature empowers care providers to access a restricted view of primary care records, particularly important for tracking medication changes. The programme team is dedicated to facilitating care providers’ ability to implement GP Connect efficiently, reducing unnecessary delays that often arise while contacting general practitioners.
In 2025, an interoperability platform will be introduced, linking social care records to various NHS systems, including patient records and shared care data. This platform will share structured data meeting minimum operational standards, ensuring frontline staff have the most up-to-date information regarding the individuals they care for.
Skinner stressed the necessity for the entire sector to adopt digital solutions to unleash the full potential of these enhancements. The goal is for every care provider to possess a digital social care record capable of connecting to the interoperability platform while maintaining adequate cyber and data security levels.
Further plans are to be developed in the forthcoming months to support this objective. However, it is noteworthy that in September 2024, NHS England declared there would be no addition of social care to the Digital Maturity Assessment in 2025, despite industry appeals for its inclusion.
The content above is a summary. For more details, see the source article.
