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Video summary of the digital strategyForeword
Our Integrated Care Board aims to improve health, wellbeing and care for the population of Hertfordshire and West Essex (HWE). Formal documents, such as the NHS Long Term Plan, set out national ambitions for improvement over the next decade and underpin the important role for technology in future health and care services. These documents set out key priorities for digital services which will radically change the way we can support and care for local people.
In today’s world, we are living longer so keeping healthy and connected is more important than it has ever been. We want to make sure local communities are thriving and vibrant places, where there is choice in every aspect of our daily lives including health and care. We increasingly accept and expect digital technologies to make our lives easier – online shopping and banking, booking of holidays or days out, or communicating and socialising with friends and family. It is right and timely that these expectations extend to wellbeing through health and social care services.
The pandemic enabled us to achieve levels of digital change that might otherwise have taken many years. So it is critical we build on that progress and ensure that all of our health and care providers across Hertfordshire and West Essex have built strong foundations for a digital future. The national ‘What Good Looks Like’ framework has seven success measures that helps us check we understand our own position and progress in terms of having the right ICS-wide digital and data strategy. It supports us to identify digital and data solutions for improving health and care outcomes, by working with local residents, partners and front line staff. Better and faster sharing of information between residents, patients and care staff gives residents a better experience and also helps us make services more efficient. Digital tools that capture information or carry out analytical tasks will help increase safety and quality. New approaches to providing care can depend on our digital capabilities – whether that is ‘virtual ward’ approaches that support people in their own homes, or the ability to send scans and pictures for expert diagnosis without needing patients to travel long distances.
Our digital strategy is ambitious and forward looking – and we don’t expect the journey to be easy to deliver. It will give us the base to build better pathways for patients now and in the future. I am grateful to all those who have already helped get us to this point and looking forward to working and collaborating more closely with colleagues to turn this into reality, to better support the people we serve in Hertfordshire and West Essex
Dr Jane Halpin – Chief Executive Officer
SRO For Digital Transformation, Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB
Digital technology is such a vital part of our daily lives and why should health and social care be any different. In Hertfordshire and West Essex, we have a unique opportunity to embed digital technology as an enabler for the delivery of our wider ICS strategy. The right technology can give people choice, improve patient safety, drive better commissioning decisions whilst also targeting health inequalities and service pressures thereby ultimately improving patient outcomes at a population level. The NHS is on a digital transformation journey unknown before in health and social care and the Hertfordshire and West Essex ICS ambition is to be a leader in this space in the next five years and beyond. Our system is under great pressure and our clinicians and patients have the right to be able to have access to the right technology that will enable a partnership between our residents, our clinicians and our social care services. We believe that after extensive stakeholder engagement, our strategy, digital vision and the themes identified, give us a strong foundation and the ambition to transform.
We plan to remove paper from our system through new electronic records and enable access to those records where and when needed. We will use technology to give our residents the tools to stay healthy in their homes and stay connected to a health professional where needed. We will ensure that we are innovative and invest in technology in robotics, Artificial Intelligence and precision medicine so that we can not only speed up diagnosis but remove duplication and provide care that is focussed on an individual’s needs. We will also ensure that that no one is left behind by our decisions and that our residents and colleagues are able to co-produce with us so our technology solutions help realise their maximum potential. Plus all of our decisions will be in line with our commitment to the green agenda. We are passionate about digital inclusion which includes addressing barriers such as having the right digital skills and support, connectivity, awareness, confidence and access, ensuring all technology meets our userbase needs, including those dependent on assistive technology to access digital health and care services.
NHS England set out the ‘What Good Looks like’ framework which gives us a baseline of where we are now. This coupled with the Hertfordshire and West Essex ICS Digital Strategy gives us the direction to deliver a digitally enabled health and social care system. The only limiting factor in driving digital maturity ambitions is our ability to believe in what is possible; however by adopting our blueprint and having confidence in our vision, we can make it a reality.
Adam Lavington – Director of Digital Transformation
Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB
Why we need an ICS digital strategy
Hertfordshire and West Essex are great places to live and work.
Our area is home to some of the healthiest, diverse and vibrant communities in the country, but there remain unacceptable differences in the health, wellbeing and life expectancy of some of our residents.
We want everyone who lives or works here to enjoy the best that our area has to offer. Our ICS wants to support our thriving communities where everyone has the right of a fulfilled and happy life, we know good physical and mental health is essential to achieve that goal. That’s why it’s important that we address health and care inequalities within our population.
Too often, those people that need the most support experience the greatest difficulties in using our services and for those who work directly with residents, service users and patients, trying to get people the right help at the right time can be frustrating too.
The trends are worrying, with avoidable diseases like type 2 diabetes on the rise. In both adults and children, conditions linked to inactivity and poor mental health mean that we risk worsening, rather than improving, health.
These challenges are not ones the NHS can fix alone. Residents have told us that they want their services to “focus on my wellness, rather than my illness”. Making this shift requires a shared ambition between the NHS, local government, our community and voluntary sector and the people who live and work here.
Our digital strategy and programme plan focuses on creating the conditions for everyone to fulfil their potential, but to ensure a healthier future we need to act decisively and work together as one system with a collective ambition.
To achieve these aims we know that having the right digital capabilities, including the technology and infrastructure, is a fundamental requirement.
It is these capabilities that will enable those that provide care to work together to create the best outcome for our residents. Residents, patients and service users will be able to access information about themselves and interact digitally with their clinical and care professionals when it is appropriate and convenient to do so, using the tools that reflect society’s current technology expectations.
Those that can’t, or don’t wish to, access services using digital capabilities will still benefit as those that support them will be more aware of their needs and will be able to provide that support as part of a collaborative team who can collectively meet their needs in a more seamless way than they can today.
Care professionals should have the tools to better understand the health and care trends within our population and be able to focus their collective expertise on those that are most vulnerable and those that have the greatest need or have the greatest challenges in accessing services.
By ensuring that all our partners have the right technology, systems and skills in place we will be able to provide a better working environment where we can deliver safer care. With better access to information and best practice advice and guidance, we will be able to focus more on supporting people in their homes when that is more convenient and safer to do so.
This ambition is supported by national guidance including the ‘What Good Looks Like’ (WGLL) digital maturity framework, which has seven success measures and sets out the expectations for a mature, well developed, digitally enabled organisation as well as a focus on levelling up these digital capabilities across England. This Digital Strategy focusses on enabling our professionals to transform the services to meet the needs of our residents.
Why we need an ICS digital strategy
This Digital Strategy sets out the approach we want to take as an ICS for the next 10 years with the immediate focus on the coming three years with regards to our investment decisions.
The NHS Long Term Plan includes national requirements for digital that are expected to be delivered at ICS level from July 2022. These include targets for virtual wards, resident access channels, digital inclusion and several other key areas set out in the 22/23 national priorities and operational planning guidance.
NHS England had therefore requested initial Digital Investment Plans at ICS level by July 2022, to help us focus the Hertfordshire and West Essex (HWE) investment plan.
The Digital Strategy has been developed collaboratively with system leadership, transformation teams, clinicians, digital leaders and supporting roles in various discussions, forums and workshops involving in excess of over 100 key stakeholders across social care, the third sector and our health care partners. The strategy and the associated three-year investment plan is built around five key areas of focus that came from those discussions, and which are building on work already in progress across the ICS.
The key enablers in achieving success in digital maturity as an ICS are far broader than just technology and our ICS digital strategy therefore focusses on not only technology but applying a digital culture with commitment from all in supporting its delivery.
Through ICB digital leadership and governance, we will ensure the right practices and processes are in place to respond to our residents’ raised expectations of digital healthcare. This will include alignment and collaboration with the overarching HWE ICB strategy and enabling strategies such as the clinical, estates, finance, procurement, green strategy, HR and people plan etc.
Having a cohesive digital strategy will put our ICS in a position to deliver our overarching ICS/ICB strategy.
We will be equipped to:
- Prevent people’s health and social care needs from escalating
- Personalise health and social care and reduce health disparities
- Improve the experience and impact of people providing services
- Transform performance
The health and care landscape in Hertfordshire and West Essex
Hertfordshire and West Essex is a complex landscape in terms of the provision of health and care, involving the organisations illustrated opposite alongside care homes, pharmacists, optometrists, dentists, third sector organisations and other support services in the community. Care pathways and health and care services, cross boundaries between places within our Integrated Care System (ICS) and to colleagues in other areas, within other ICS’s, such as London and Cambridge amongst others. These cross-border services are provided by organisations such as Essex County Council, Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust and Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust.
The HWE ICS is starting from a low technological base, resulting from a historical lack of resource and investment. This is reflected in the current baseline position against the new “What Good Looks Like” (WGLL) digital maturity framework which averages three out of five overall. However, there are several significant digital investment programmes underway. Good progress has also been made on some large system-wide projects – notably the HWE Shared Care Record (ShCR) has been described by senior clinicians as “transformational” in the delivery of care.
National digital NHS context
Digital technology is now a core part of our lives and has been demonstrated to be hugely valuable in how we now undertake undertake many routine tasks, such as banking and travel arrangements. In UK public sector health and social care delivery, digital is typically less mature than the other sectors. The NHS Long Term Plan seeks to address this and includes national requirements for digital that are expected to be delivered at ICS level from July 2022. These include targets for virtual wards, resident access channels, digital inclusion, and other key areas set out in the 2022/23 national priorities and operational planning guidance.
With funding limited across the wider NHS and Social Care sectors, there is also a focus on digital convergence and standardisation initiatives, including, but not limited to, convergence of electronic patient care record systems, shared care plans, and improving digitisation of social care, mental health and community health services as well as within outpatient settings. It is expected that funding for these initiatives will be coordinated and distributed at ICS level from July 2022 via Integrated Care Boards, and that ICB’s will play a central role in digital investment decisions.
The “What Good Looks Like” framework is also moving towards a mandatory national digital maturity framework, core to the national guidance and is already being actively used to focus strategic investment and effort. Our current assessment is one of relatively low digital maturity as an ICS. Our early work in Hertfordshire and West Essex has taken advantage of national support through the ICS Population Health and Place Development Programme. This has supported ICS’s in assessing how to build our digital maturity through a series of centrally provided Action Learning Sets based on the WGLL framework.
NHS England had requested initial 3-year Digital Investment Plans be developed at ICS level. To help focus the HWE investment plan, this strategy sets out the approach for our digital maturity growth in Hertfordshire and West Essex.
This Digital Strategy provides a framework in which our collective digital investment decisions can start to be made. It does this by providing:
- Our Vision, Goals and Strategic Principles – to focus our efforts and help us make the key digital investment decisions and establish strategic programmes of delivery.
- Our Digital Mission – describing how the ICS will focus its system-wide efforts to improve our digital maturity as a health and social care system to support the improved health and care of our residents.
- Our Digital Roadmap – that sets out our journey over the next decade and provides the backdrop to our 3-year investments, conditioned by available funding provided from within the ICS budgets, and from national sources when these become available.
Our HWE ICS Digital Strategy provides examples of our achievements to date but also supporting example future digital visionary stories to help visualise the benefits and impact our strategy and plans will have on our residents and care professionals.
What our digital strategy covers
The HWE ICS Digital Strategy provides a framework of principles and goals in which ICS-wide digital priority programmes will support the ICS transformation initiatives and support how digital investment decision making is made. It recognises the need for organisations to deliver their own specialist digital needs within their dedicated budgets but also where the need is consistent with the collective system needs and national standards. The strategy is therefore additive to local efforts and requirements.
The ICS Digital Strategy focuses on:
- Supporting the ICS transformation initiatives as needed with ICS wide solutions, that are also consistent with the needs of the Places within HWE.
- Making a measurable difference to the collective health and care provision across Hertfordshire and West Essex and its borders through common approaches to the use of digital technology.
- Improving the commonality of digital solutions and their ability to talk to each other (interoperate) so that the needs of the population are better catered for.
- Driving up digital maturity in line with the WGLL digital maturity framework
- Securing the best value for the HWE £ from digital investments.
It does not :
- Replace organisations or PLACE digital strategies; rather it informs, provides a reference point and context for those.
- Address Business as Usual (BAU) digital and information technology plans funded out of local budget allocations to maintain day to day services.
- Cover initiatives that don’t meet the strategic transformation, investment or delivery principles.
- Address digital solutions specific to one organisation’s specialist needs
Our digital vision and goals
Our digital vision support our overall ICS vision:
Our digital strategy sets out how health and care organisations across Hertfordshire and west Essex will use technology to improve patient care over the next decade. It includes plans to strengthen our workforce’s digital skills, share information to improve care and help people to access online services.
- We will work together to maximise the opportunities to coordinate system wide digital solutions, and provide the right care at the right time, through multi-disciplinary health and social care teams.
- We will bring together the essential connectivity, information, intelligence and data for all care settings as needed by service users, residents and care professionals to improve the overall health and wellbeing of our population.
- We will use digital technology to help keep people well in their homes and improve their overall life chances, at the same time addressing the twin challenges of demand and capacity across the system.
- We will encourage targeted investment and digital innovation at the front line that has potential scalable benefits to improving health and care outcomes. We will involve Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), universities, and the private sector where it makes sense, and we can afford it.
- We will improve the inclusion of our population in accessing their health and care needs digitally where appropriate and will build a digitally confident and skilled workforce.
Strategic digital investment principles*
*Based on guidance published by NHS Providers as latest (May 2022) in a series of guidance for Boards of NHS organisations on digital agenda , commissioned by HEE and supported by NHS England. The guidance is focused at NHS Trust but applicable to all digital transformation in health and care settings. They align with HWE senior leadership wider ways of working.
We will apply a clear set of principles to the way we target our investments in digital, aligned to current health and care sector best practice.
Prioritise the things that residents and staff need
- Projects at ICS level will focus on resident and staff benefit, and competing projects evaluated against these.
- Competing benefits profiles must explicitly demonstrate direct or indirect benefit (e.g. better access – direct, or better security – more indirect)
- Practical implications – All benefit cases/calls for funding must be explicit and address categories agreed by the ICB. See NHS Providers for more guidance and case stories.
Get the best out of digital suppliers
- Develop and maintain strategic supply relationships at ICS level where this makes sense.
- Aim to use the same solution where procurement rules allow, it makes strategic sense, is cost effective and appropriate contractual vehicles exist.
- Practical implications – Use an established proven supply route where we can to get economies of scale and replicate solutions and relationships. See NHS Providers for more guidance and case stories.
Set clear, realistic goals
- Ensure that the primary aim of digital investment is realistically achievable and has evidenced benefits for residents and staff with “optimism bias” challenged.
- Practical Implications – Rigorous testing process for cases as assurance for ICB. See NHS Providers for more guidance and case stories.
Invest in a dedicated, cross functional ICS team
- Create a right sized, coordinated cross functional, cross care setting, cross place virtual digital team to maintain focus on the vision and ensure that learning and approaches are coordinated rather than reinvented.
- Practical Implications – A new digital operating model across HWE. See NHS Providers for more guidance and case stories.
Our Digital Strategy Mission – What we will deliver and how we will do it
Digital collaboration
Our goal is to work together to maximise the opportunities to coordinate system wide digital solutions, and provide the right care at the right time, through multi-disciplinary health and social care teams.
To achieve this, we will work together to adopt a coordinated health and care needs led approach to digital that focuses on local demands, but which is coordinated through place-based digital and care professional networks, including care representatives closer to the residents such as GPs, social workers, pharmacists, optometrists, dentists, third sector organisations and others in the community. This will enable a broader and more holistic approach to digital being adopted in line with our approach to care (e.g., through our Primary Care Strategy).
Digital platforms
Our goal is to bring together the essential connectivity, information, intelligence and data for all care settings as needed by service users, residents and care professionals to improve the overall health and well-being of our population.
To achieve this, we will build and then enhance and optimise the key strategic digital platforms we need once for the ICS, or we will develop a fully joined up, interoperable, landscape of local platforms. We will optimise existing digital platforms wherever possible rather than building new replacements.
Digital direct care
Our goal is to use digital technology to help keep people well in their homes, offer choice and improve their overall life chances through healthcare at the residents’ fingertips, at the same time addressing the twin challenges of demand and capacity across the system.
To achieve this, we will use digital technology at scale to bring care closer to our residents in their homes or the places they call home. We will focus on engagement with our users internally and residents in the co-creation of new ways of digital working and make solutions easy to use and with a consistent look and feel.
Digital innovation
We will realistically strive to lead digital innovation partnering with AHSNs, universities, and the private sector to identify and adopt new technologies that offer scalable benefits to support our ICS challenges and workstream priorities.
To achieve this, we will pilot digital health and care innovation at smaller scale where there is a potential to grow and deploy this more widely, and we will learn from others using innovative technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Precision Medicines and Robotics.
Digital skills
Our goal is to improve the inclusion of our population in accessing their health and care needs digitally where appropriate and will build a digitally confident and skilled workforce.
To achieve this, we will develop a coordinated approach with third sector partners and others to address barriers to accessing health and care services digitally, providing access to technology, information and navigation to those least able to access digital services. We will support and train our staff in the use of digital technologies to develop their confidence and skills in using digital tools particularly at the front line. We will strive to build trust in digital solutions for health and care and keep our staff and residents safe online.
* “What Good Looks Like” is the overall digital maturity framework for ICS digital maturity introduced by NHS England in 2022 to measure progress towards an overall national level of digital capability.
Digital collaboration
System Wide Digital Collaboration
Digital collaboration
“By 2023 we will have established an “Office of the Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO)” approach to leading our digital landscape in support of safe care. We will identify digital and data solutions to improve care by regularly engaging with frontline users and residents and have digitally capable Boards.”
| What digital capability will we deliver? | When could we have it? | What benefits will it give us? | What will care professionals say? | What will our residents say? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Invest in a sustainable multidisciplinary digital care professional “office of the CCIO” at ICS level. | Q1 2023-24 | A coordinated approach to making the right priority calls on digital investment from a professional perspective and maximising the use of digital in support of our residents and safe care. | “We are confident that our digital solutions for the ICS are led by care professionals, and that they will work at the front line” | “The doctors, nurses and social workers we see always seem to have technology that works for them when we see them. Gone are the days whereas residents we feel we didn’t have a voice in their digital decision making” |
| Invest in Digital Board education as part of the programme of developing digital awareness and capability. | Q1 2023-24 | Confident Board level sponsorship, assurance, challenge and decision making on digital initiatives. | “Our ICB Board and the Boards of our organisations are making joined up calls on digital investment that seems to be making a real difference at the front line” | “Digital seems to be everywhere for our health and care needs these days, whether that’s at home, at the GP or in hospital. It used to be more of an add on, but today it’s as important as the water supply” |
| Invest for the long term in digital clinical fellows at ICS levels and care professional digital leads for all ICS organisations. | Q4 2023-24 | Sustained investment in a core set of senior care professionals able to support digital initiatives and targeting technology where it enhances the provision of care. | “We have peers who are genuine digital experts who we can turn to who can guide us in making the best use of digital technology.” | “I was talking to my consultant, and he said that the technology he was using had been designed by another consultant in Watford and he was really pleased with it” |
| Introduce a quality improvement / benefits realisation method at ICS level in support of the identification of digital initiatives. | Q4 2023-24 | A sustainable approach to improving care using digital solution integrated with quality improvement / benefits realisation approaches. | “Digital is just something we now always consider when we are trying to improve the care we provide” | “I can see people using modern technology on the front line these days in preference to pen and paper” |
Existing Case Studies
Digital collaboration
Essential Strategic Digital Platforms
Digital platforms
* “What Good Looks Like” is the overall digital maturity framework for ICS digital maturity introduced by NHS England in 2022 to measure progress towards an overall national level of digital capability.
Digital platforms
“By 2027 we will have modern health and care technology that gives us a single version of the truth for our residents as individuals and our population and communities as a whole.”
| What digital capability will we deliver? | When could we have it? | What benefits will it give us? | What will care professionals say? | What will our residents say? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shared Care Record | Now. 2025-26 for all care pathways | A single joined up view of a resident’s care wherever they have received it, both inside and outside our ICS. | ”I am confident that I have the full up to date view of those to whom I provide care wherever they have received it so that I can provide them with the best possible care.” | “I don’t have to repeat my story to anyone” |
| Electronic Care Record | 2022 – 2027 | Modern care record systems that talk to each other across all our health and care providers and paperless care records. | “I have the best technology at my fingertips whether I am working in ED, in the community or on an ambulance.” | “I am confident that our hospitals, clinics and social work teams have the best possible technology available to manage my care” |
| Shared Data Platform and Population Health Management (PHM) technologies | 2023-24 Levelling up of data access, intelligence and PHM analytics 2028-29 Data and Analytical Maturity | An accurate view of the health and care needs of our communities that enables us to target resources supported by trusted research environments. | “I know that we are able to target our teams on making a difference for the neediest residents in HWE.” “We can use advanced analytical tools to better understand the needs of our population” | “I feel our communities are healthier and better looked after than they ever have been” |
| Resident Access platforms | 2023-24 | Our residents (Target 75%) will be able to interact with care professionals without letters or paper or manage aspects of their own care as much as possible by the NHS App. | “Those I care for are aware of their care pathway, rarely miss an appointment and feel they get a personalised and responsive service” | “I don’t have to wait to contact my care providers and I generally get questions answered the same day” |
| Care Coordination Centre(s) | 2023-24 | Ability to make the best use of scarce resources and assemble the right expertise managing transfers of care / shared care across the system. | “I feel I am able to make a real difference working with teams of care professional across all settings.” | “The care I got covered all of the things that were worrying me through a “one stop shop”. |
| Shared infrastructure | 2023 – 2032 | Unified core infrastructure across all of health and care in HWE offering a lower cost and single interface and world class cyber security | “Our networks and kit “just work” and have the same look and feel wherever I am.” | “I never see my care givers having to wait for anything to load up on their screens” |
Digital platforms
Existing Case Studies
Proven Digital Direct Care Enablers
Digital direct care
* “What Good Looks Like” is the overall digital maturity framework for ICS digital maturity introduced by NHS England in 2022 to measure progress towards an overall national level of digital capability.
Digital direct care
“By 2027 Virtual Wards will be a proven and successful way of delivering care across the whole of Herts and West Essex. We will be delivering remote care wherever that makes sense, and we will have exceeded all our Long-Term Plan objectives in digital care”.
| What digital capability will we deliver? | When could we have it? | What benefits will it give us? | What will care professionals say? | What will our residents say? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult Social Care Falls Prevention to be used to protect 20% of care home residents by 2024. | Q3 2024/25 | Significant improvements to care for frail residents. Reductions in harm and hospital admissions. Reduced associated mortality. | “We have been able to prevent significant numbers of falls in many of our service users and work with local services to safeguard them in the homes.” | “I feel safe and supported at home and know that the risk of me having a bad fall is a lot lower than it was |
| Early Memory Diagnosis and Support Service Remote Monitoring of Severe Mental Illness (SMI) patients | Progressive once agreed to 2024/25 | Early assessment and practical support around residents with severe mental illnesses who may be suffering from dementia. | “We are better able to manage our seriously unwell residents in the community and anticipate the longer-term evolution of their difficulties” | “I have been so worried by the progression of my relative’s difficulties, but remote care has been really helpful to alleviate that” |
| Wound Care Digital App for Community Nurses | Progressive once agreed to 2024/25 | Better diagnosis and support for community nurses. Improved resident outcomes. Reduced harm and hospital admissions. | “I feel I am making much better decisions for those to whom I provide care in the community and provide them with significantly better care” | “I know that when the nurse comes, she is getting really great support from expert advice via her app.” |
| Virtual Ward and Hospital programmes | Progressive once agreed to 2026/27 | Improved resident outcomes. Reduced harm and hospital admissions. Reduced pressure on the system. | “We are able to much more closely monitor the health of more residents and keep them well in their homes than ever before” | “I have multiple long-term conditions but know that I am getting care that is 24/7 at home” |
| Online/Virtual Consultation Expansion | Progressive once agreed to 2026/27 | Improved resident outcomes. Reduced harm and hospital admissions. | “I am able to manage those to whom I provide care much more effectively and know that they don’t have to travel to see me” | “I find it difficult to get out of my home so speaking to my GP online is brilliant” |
| Secondary Care physician support and advice to Primary Care clinicians | Progressive once agreed to 2026/27 | Building on the successes of the vCKD pilots in the ICS to provide secondary care advice and guidance to primary care clinicians caring for residents with multiple long-term conditions. | “I am now getting real time advice from secondary care consultants for my patients with a range of complex long term conditions reducing referrals significantly and enabling me to provide significantly better care” | “My GP has been able to keep me really well for much longer than used to be the case a few years ago when I was constantly having to go into hospital for tests and medication reviews when things flared up.” |
Existing Case Studies
Digital direct care
Local Digital Care Innovation
* “What Good Looks Like” is the overall digital maturity framework for ICS digital maturity introduced by NHS England in 2022 to measure progress towards an overall national level of digital capability.
Digital innovation
| What digital capability will we deliver? | When could we have it? | What benefits will it give us? | What will care professionals say? | What will our residents say? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Established links with the wider NHS, universities, AHSNs, and others aligned to exploring and testing new technologies for care in line with the NHS Long Term Plan. | 2023/24 | Wider coordination and insight into approaches to common problems. Additional capacity to help with analytics and HWE-wide initiatives where that is affordable. | “We have a really good insight into what the art of the possible is and the future that enables us to think through the opportunities for care provision five years out” | ”I see a lot of awards for care tech in my area which gives me real confidence that my family will get great care here”. |
| Remote monitoring and resident owned devices | 2024/25 | The ability to support new pathways that support the resident at home whilst enabling specialist support and active interventions when needed | “We are able to safely support complex mothers to be at home whilst reducing their unnecessary trips to the hospital when they are worried.” | “This pregnancy was so much less stressful than my previous one. With my home monitoring device and the connection to my mobile the midwifes were able to reassure me when I was worried and even ask me to contact them when they were concerned. I really felt safe and supported” |
| Robotic Process Automation | Progressive once agreed to 2026/27 | Elimination of repetitive, time consuming and error prone manual tasks in front line care and back office. | The management of waiting lists by automated processes means that I’m seeing the neediest residents earlier” | “I know that if I need to be seen by someone urgently it will be automatically prioritised” |
| AI in Diagnostics for example MRI & prostate, and support for cancer diagnosis | 2026/27 | Assistive technology support for clinicians to identify and grade cancers earlier. Improved diagnosis and resident outcomes. | “With AI support we are picking up and treating cancers much earlier and saving lives” | “I had a routine scan. The radiologist couldn’t see anything but the system they were using identified something that had to be treated and now I am cancer free” |
| Genomic treatments to support cancer patients | Progressive once agreed to 2026/27 and beyond | Targeted treatments for individuals improving outcomes and mortality for residents. | I know that the tools I have available to treat those to whom I provide care are advancing all the time” | “I was able to benefit from “personalised medicines” in my treatment programmes and am now well” |
Existing Case Studies
Digital Inclusion and Workforce Capability
Digital skills
Facilitate Digital Inclusion and Workforce Capability
Digital skills
| What digital capability will we deliver? | When could we have it? | What benefits will it give us? | What will care professionals say? | What will our residents say? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supporting people without access to technology to gain access and the skills to interact with their health and care providers digitally when they wish to. | 2025/26 | More of our population will be more confident in, and able to access health and care services and service information using secure, trusted technology when and where convenient for them. As we provide more services online, we can be confident that our population is able to access these tools and resources if they so wish. | “The people I care for are better informed about the services and can contact me digitally for support and advice without having to wait until my next visit. I feel more confident that they remain safe and well between visits”. | “I feel that the online interactions I have with anyone in the social care service are always done to a high standard and in a way that doesn’t make the stress of dealing with my circumstances any more difficult. I know that if I am concerned, I can contact them and will receive an answer without having to wait for a visit” |
| Support services for digital access to health and care commissioned across all of the communities we serve. | 2023 – 2027 | We will progressively move services to accessible digital platforms for most of our population but ensure that the digitally excluded remain supported. This will result in more efficient and more targeted care, and improved convenience and travel for our service users. | “I am able to offer our service users high standards of care in their home or the place they call home using digital technologies and be confident that they will receive safe, round the clock care.” | “I know that I am getting a much higher standard of care at home than I might in hospital because I know my health is being monitored 24/7 even if it’s not obvious to me, and that if I suddenly fall ill help will already be on its way” |
| By March 2025, constituent organisations of an ICS have: established digital, data and technology talent pipelines, and improved digital literacy among leaders and the workforce | 2024 – 2026 | We will equip our entire workforce with the skills it needs to use digital technologies to provide care and inspire confidence in those technologies for our service users. | “Our entire workforce is digitally confident and getting things done is much more seamless and effective as a direct result”. | “I feel confident in using the digital systems. I see my social worker and know that he/she is able to use the technology to provide me and my family with great all-round care.” |
Existing Case Studies
10-year digital maturity journey
As the ICS moves forward on its strategic journey the focus of its efforts will evolve over time. With an initial focus on leveraging digital capabilities that support front line care there will be a progression to focusing on the major platforms that will underpin the true transformational efforts over the longer term.
As progress is achieved across the five themes there will be a corresponding improvement in the WGLL maturity level as indicated in this chart.
Each theme descriptor in this strategy highlights the WGLL measures that will be impacted as the delivery progresses.
Appendix A shows the current WGLL assessment which is the foundation on which this strategy builds.
Managing the risk and challenges
How we will deliver
We will:
- Build a flexible and agile ICB Digital Maturity Team to plan, coordinate and oversee our major programmes. This will provide a structured approach for all ICS programmes to ensure transparency of progress, good use of the scarce resources at our disposal and provide assurance that programmes will be delivered and benefits realised.
- Work collaboratively as partners to both lead and deliver our ICS programmes. Leads for each programme will be identified from partner organisations and will account to the collective governance.
- Support each other in delivering programmes, sharing our skills and experiences to ensure successful delivery and joint learning.
- Engage our front line staff, residents and leaders in the design and delivery of our programmes, putting users and care recipients at the centre of our work.
Our governance
- Our digital governance will run in line with our digital strategy to enable us work better together as partners and provide the controls and assurance our residents should expect.
- This will ensure best value for the taxpayer whilst meeting expectations for the modern digital age and improving the efficiency of the services we provide.
- Our health and care professionals will play a key role in our governance, ensuring that we remain focused on projects that improve the outcomes and long-term life chances for our population as well as improving the working lives for all our staff and carers within our population.
What Good Looks Like (WGLL) – the 7 success measures
1 and 2 : WGLL Assessment “Well Led” and “Smart Foundations” Measures
3 and 4: WGLL Assessment “Safe Practice” and “Support People” Measures
5 and 6 : WGLL Assessment “Empower Citizens” and “Improve Care” Measures
7. WGLL Assessment “Healthy Populations” Measure
Current Overall ICS Assessment
