Digital technologies used in social care are to be categorised and considered for an assurance whitelist to make it easier for people to find those that can help them to live independently.
The move is being planned under the NHS England Transformation Directorate’s Digitising Social Care Programme, along with an effort to ensure they are connected to other systems.
Programme director Peter Skinner has outlined the plans in a blogpost, saying they reflect its two key areas of focus for the coming months.
“We will set new standards for the use of technology in care so people who draw on care, their families and care providers can confidently buy what works and get the safest, most effective tech into their homes or services, promoting better choice and control for people,” he said.
“We will join up health and care services by enabling health and care staff to access real time social care, GP and hospital data, including by joining up digital systems with a shared platform.”
Sensor focus
He said the effort will initially focus on sensor based technologies, such as for falls prevention and detection, then move on to other categories.
It will be aimed at making it easier for people to find technology that is fit for purpose and meets a clearly defined set of standards.
The programme team will work with partners to categorise different types of technology and provide guidance on where they can be used and the impact they have.
Each category of technology will have a list of minimum functions that must be offered and the standards that apply to the technology. The programme team will then provide a list of solutions that are compliant with the standards.
“Where possible we will not duplicate existing standards,” Skinner said. “We will instead be listing the ISO, BSI or other published standards that the technology must comply with so that suppliers are not being asked to complete standards that only apply within social care.
“We will also look to 'whitelist' existing assurance models, such as the TEC QSF (Technology Enabled Care Quality Standards Framework), so that where a supplier has already been through an equivalent process we are not asking them to go through additional assurance.”
Joining up services
This will be accompanied by the effort to connect systems to join up health and social care services.
A significant step is already being taken, with all assured digital social care record systems expected to be switched on GP Connect – the service for care workers to access patients’ GP records – by the end of February. This will be followed in the coming months by helping the care workers to switch on to the service and use it in their care records.
It will be accompanied by the development of an interoperability platform that connects together social care records and provides a single place to connect into NHS systems, including patient records, shared care records and the Federated Data Platform.
It will share data that is structured around the minimum operational data standard for direct care purposes so that frontline staff have the latest information about the person they are looking after.
Digitise whole sector
“To fully realise these benefits we need to ensure that the whole sector is digitised,” Skinner said. “We want to ensure that every provider has a digital social care record that can be connected to the interoperability platform and that all care providers meet an appropriate level of cyber and data security before information is shared.
“We will be developing options for how to achieve this over the coming months.”
He added that the effort for 80% of care providers to have a digital social care record by the end of March appears to be on track, and that the programme is aiming for all of them to be fully digitised, with staff having access to essential medical information, by the end of the current Parliament.
