Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) update and (b) improve NHS IT systems.

We have set out our plans in ‘A Plan for Digital Health and Care’ June 2022 to update and improve technology efficiency and efficacy in the NHS. Further detail is also set out in the Data Saves Lives strategy, and in the annual business plans for both the Department and NHS England.

We are investing approximately £2 billion centrally each year between 2022/23 and 2024/25 to digitise the frontline of the NHS and improve services for patients and staff. Local NHS trusts and other providers top up those central investments locally. Allocations are made across a range of priority areas, including improving patient's abilities to access their own records, appointments, and information, such as through the NHS App, and in the core digital infrastructure of providers of all types through our GP IT and Frontline Digitisation programmes. The latter has provided circa £440 million to over 150 trusts in 2022/23 to support them to digitise, ensuring 90% of trusts have electronic health records by December 2023, rising to 95% by March 2025. We are also investing to ensure 80% of Care Quality Commission registered adult social care providers have a digital social care record by March 2024.

NHS IT capability in England is being measured and tracked through an annual digital maturity assessment designed to support trusts to understand their digital and data maturity and develop plans to meet our digitisation standards.