Professor Jonathan Benger has called the new National Digital Channels - Platform and Integration Strategy a digital front door in a positive blogpost published by architects of the strategy NHS Digital.
The consultant in emergency medicine at Bristol Royal Infirmary and digital citizen portfolio lead at NHS England said the strategy would reduce duplication.
Published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the strategy has set out a roadmap for health and social care systems by bringing together the existing national digital channels, the NHS website, NHS App and the NHS login service. The plan is to make them a single technology offer intended to make the systems more effective, a step towards the delivery of personalised care and faster.
Four pillars of the strategy were announced: increased open collaboration across the digital channels; reduced duplication of services; improvements in planning for partners and third parties; and improved support for internal and external partners to develop new digital services.
Benger said in his blog: “My hope is that our platform strategy will help commissioners and suppliers understand what technical capabilities exist across our national digital channels and how to make use of these services.
"For commissioners, this should help them to achieve their local plans, and for suppliers, I hope this information enables quicker and cost-effective delivery of services.”
He added: “By sharing this platform offer now, we can reduce duplication of services delivered at both national and local level, allow clearer planning by partners, and improve insights into usage too.”
The strategy has the potential to create a “digital front door” he said. “We are already putting health services directly into the hands of the public. That offers us a great opportunity to use these channels to reduce demand on frontline services, give patients access to quicker and more effective care at their fingertips and save the health and care system time and money.”
Benefits
The professor added that the front door was already ajar: “The NHS App has over 30 million registrations, and NHS login has 43 million confirmed accounts and 71 partners integrated with the service. The NHS website has seen 74 million visits a month on average in 2022.”
Benger said now was the moment to ensure there was good awareness of “what these channels can offer the healthcare system and its patients, so these channels become part of the ‘digital front door’ to the NHS. He said doing this will be a vital part of the efforts by the NHS to offer the public personalised, accessible and equitable digital services.
