Overcoming the NHS’ interoperability challenge

With the benefit of several decades’ experience in digital project and programme delivery, most recently as a transformation director for an international digital service practice, I have witnessed first-hand how advances in service design and digital technology and are helping organisations deliver ever better services to their stakeholders.

Increasingly sophisticated user-centred design approaches are being combined with increases in computational power, provided by cloud computing, and a new emphasis on data science, AI and machine learning, to deliver a new breed of digital services, far better tailored to each organisation’s needs. In health, people are increasingly embracing the opportunity to take control of their own healthcare pathways. No longer will the majority be passive recipients of care, with the recent rapid growth in use of the NHS App testament to a public appetite to gain more direct access to healthcare services and their individual healthcare records.

As we move beyond the current crisis into recovery, Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) will also become a reality as an essential ingredient of the NHS Long Term Plan, with all parts of England served by an ICS from April 2021. The need to ensure that data flows readily and securely between centralised and regionalised care centres is vital.