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CARE HOME


ENVIRONMENT Editor


Matt Seex mattseex@stepcomms.com


Business Manager Mike Gammon


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Katy Cockle katycockle@stepcomms.com


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Geoff King geoffking@stepcomms.com Publishing Director


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THE CARE HOME ENVIRONMENT is published monthly by Step Communications Ltd, Step House, North Farm Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3DR, UK.


Tel: +44 (0)1892 779999 Email: info@thecarehomeenvironment.com Web: www.thecarehomeenvironment.com


Matt Seex Editor mattseex@stepcomms.com


Little progress on digitisation targets


Welcome to the March issue of The Care Home Environment.


We hear a lot about the importance of digitisation – both when it comes to bringing social care procedures and record keeping into the 21st century, and also when it concerns the integration of social care with the NHS via the use and sharing of digital care records. Unfortunately, in February, the Health and Social Care Committee’s expert panel on the evaluation of government commitments made on the digitisation of the NHS delivered a rather damning conclusion on the government’s progress to date.


The panel evaluated a number of


government commitments, including its pledge to ‘deliver an integrated health and care record for all patients’. Progress on this specific commitment was rated ‘inadequate’ by the panel. Specifically, the panel found that: ‘The evidence we received indicated


ISSN NO. 2398-3280


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STEPThe panel also found ‘ … significant variation in the digital maturity of health


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that poor interoperability prevented the effective flow of information within and between hospital providers, general practice providers, community providers, and social care providers – particularly when digital maturity was poor.’


and social care providers, both between and within geographic areas’. The chair of the expert panel, Professor Dame Jane Dacre, noted that: “ … promises have been made but not delivered, hampering wider progress … we have seen no clear plan for how the government will address public and provider concerns regarding sharing personal data, which is crucial to address in order for this to be successful.” Steve Brine MP, chair of the Health and Social Committee, added: “Integration of the NHS with social care services is vital so it is concerning that these care settings appear to be frequently overlooked.” Indeed, the panel found that none of


the evaluated commitments relating to the policy areas of cost efficiency and workforce referred specifically to social care. The panel highlighted some of the disparities between the NHS and social care, saying that: ‘National standards relating to the


procurement and use of digital technology within the NHS often do not apply to social care, resulting in siloed provision of digital health and social care. We found that social care provider systems are particularly likely to have poor digital maturity and are often poorly integrated with health systems. This caused problems when patients were moved between health and social care settings, and within the social care sector for staff who moved between providers as they had to learn a new system every time.’ When it comes to the government’s aim of better integrating health and social care, then, there is clearly still a very long way to go, especially when it comes to social care’s ‘poor digital maturity’. I hope you enjoy the issue.


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