Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of the lack of shared IT systems between primary, secondary and mental healthcare on (a) patients and (b) healthcare professionals.

No specific assessment has been made. Shared care records are in place in all integrated care boards, allowing information from general practice and acute settings to be shared for direct care.

The Frontline Digitisation programme is working to improve the digital maturity of all providers so that they have adequate enabling hardware, robust connectivity, electronic patient record systems, and other core capabilities in place.

The Data Information and Smart Data Bill announced in the King's Speech will include the statutory power to require IT suppliers to adhere to information standards. This will help ensure there is a ‘common language’ for health and care software systems to talk to each other, across all health and care settings.