Digitising NHS and adult social care services across the UK will require an estimated £21 billion – of which £14.75 billion would be for England – over the next five years, according to new research published by the Health Foundation.
The independent charity, which focuses on public health, has published a report on the issue, Digitising the NHS and adult social care, in response to the Government’s ambition to achieve a shift from analogue to digital care in the sectors.
It commissioned PA Consulting to assess the investment needed to achieve existing ambitions for digitisation. These include putting in place infrastructure such as electronic patient records, cloud storage, cyber security and Wi-Fi, along with the skills and capabilities to use it effectively.
The research estimated that the costs of this for the UK include £8 billion in capital spending £5 billion for England), £3 billion in one-off revenue spending (£2.25 billion), and £2 billion annual revenue spending (£1.5 billion) over five years.
Among the report’s findings are that spending will have to go beyond direct investment in the technology to implementation and ongoing support for training, maintenance and optimisation.
It might be possible to cover some of this from existing budgets, but likely that the Government will need to commit additional funding. Also, the recurring costs will have to be met beyond the five-year focus of the research.
Information gaps
The report also highlights important gaps in publicly available information on the costs and benefits of digitisation, and sets out three key actions to ensure the NHS and social care services can meet ambitions for digitisation.
These are to: set a clear and durable vision for digitisation in the sectors; support this with the required funding; and develop a plan for realising the benefits - including higher quality care, better patient experience, better staff experience and improved productivity.
Director of innovation and improvement at the Health Foundation, Dr Malte Gerhold, said: “Ministers have repeatedly stressed the need for health and care services to move from analogue to digital. Our independently commissioned research finds that to achieve the government’s ambitions to digitise health and social care, significant spending will be needed over the next five years and beyond.
“But direct investment in technology alone is not sufficient. The Government must fund the change not just the tech. This means investing in and planning for implementation and change to genuinely realise the benefits of digitisation for patients and staff.”
