- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, whether all health and care staff have the devices and equipment they need to do their job, including the ability to work remotely/flexibly, and, if not, how many staff do not currently have such devices and equipment, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
This is a matter for individual NHS Boards and Local Authorities. It is their responsibility to ensure that staff receive the necessary equipment they require.
In support of this, in 2019 Scotland undertook its first digital maturity assessment across health and social care which helped to identify current system capabilities, capacity and skills. Key areas identified for improvement was to improve capability and infrastructure. National programmes such as Near Me and the roll out of Microsoft 365 have further supported this improvement, whilst other national programmes are now underway such as the National Digital Platform and Digital Front Door will build on this further.
A further assessment is due to take place later this year and it will provide an updated baseline of digital maturity and support the further gathering of information to allow us to better understand what good looks like, the resource required to support organisational development and support further review and prioritisation as required, tied into local service planning.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government how it is (a) promoting and (b) facilitating appropriate, safe and secure access to (i) clinical, (ii) biomedical, (iii) care and (iv) other data for approved research, development, and innovation in the public interest.
Answer
The Scottish Government and COSLA are developing a Data Strategy for Health and Social Care due for publication this year. In advance of this Strategy, the Scottish Government recently funded and launched Research Data Scotland ( RDS) to help fulfil this commitment. The launch of RDS is a key step in achieving our goal to support research and innovation as is set out in the forthcoming Data Strategy for Health and Social Care.
The Data Strategy will examine and bring clarity on eight priority areas: Data Access, Ethical Approaches to Data, Protecting and Sharing Data, Supporting Research and Innovation, Creating Insights from Data, Information Standards and Interoperability, Talent and Culture and Technology and Infrastructure.
The Strategy will set out commitments and deliverables for each priority area, this will include:
- facilitating safe and secure access to health and social care data for research, industry and innovation purposes,
- enabling staff to have greater access to and make better use of health and social care data. They will also outline how we can generate better insight from data to improve delivery of services and inform strategic planning,
- developing and supporting staff to have the essential data skills to understand and make better use of data and data driven tools.
- articulating the deliverables which are inextricably linked to infrastructure, architecture and hosting, in addition to the actions set out in the 2022-23 DHAC Delivery Plan.
Through the course of developing the Data Strategy the Scottish Government has undertaken a wide range of engagement with professionals and the public. This includes a formal consultation alongside bespoke public engagement seeking their views on access to data amongst other topics. The analysis of consultation responses can be view on gov.scot. Our Data Dialogues work can be view on our website.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it has done to expand the specialist digital, data, design and technology (DDAT) professional workforce within health and social care.
Answer
Whilst recruitment is the responsibility of the employing health and social care organisation, the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Local Government Digital Office are currently considering how to best apply the DDaT Professional Framework to the health and social care sector.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it has done to develop career development opportunities within the specialist digital, data, design and technology (DDAT) professional workforce within health and social care.
Answer
We are in the process of exploring the feasibility of how we can embed the DDaT Framework into all NHS Scotland Health Boards. This is being discussed collaboratively across health and social care in Scotland and with NHS England to share experiences of ongoing developments and avoid potential duplication of effort.
The DDaT Framework will help provide consistency across health and social care organisations in ongoing development and access to learning resources. It will also enable us to explore a common definition of job roles and align to workforce competition across all sectors in recruitment and retention.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has put in place a regular assurance process for reporting and regular discussions to support health and care organisations with planning, strategy development and other key decision making as appropriate.
Answer
The Health Planning process is intended to provide Scottish Government with confirmation that NHS Boards and their partners have plans in place to continue to deliver safe and accessible treatment and care and fully deliver Ministerial priorities. Plans are submitted by NHS Boards and reviewed internally by policy, finance, and workforce officials.
The plans represent the agreement between SG and NHS Boards setting out how Boards will deliver Ministerial priorities and work towards a more sustainable model of care; and, in doing so support Scottish Government to hold Boards to account for their contribution over the year. Progress is reviewed and reported on quarterly, and NHS Boards have the opportunity to formally update their plans on an annual basis.
Scottish Government leads and/or attends regular meetings with Board Chief Executives, Functional Directors, and other clinical and non-clinical stakeholders to discuss planning, strategy development and other key decision making as appropriate.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how much it has spent on introducing new fully digital clinical and care services, treatment and support since October 2021, broken down by service.
Answer
In addition to spend set out in the answer to question S6W-14087 on 27 January 2023 in 2022-23 as part of the overall health portfolio investment, Scottish Government are investing £99.6 million in digital health and care. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government when it last conducted digital maturity exercises across its health and care delivery landscape.
Answer
In 2019, Scotland undertook its first digital maturity assessment across health and social care which helped to identify key priorities. A second national digital maturity exercise will be undertaken in 2023 and will provide current picture of digital maturity. This will support us to develop our “What good looks like” model, identify resources required to support organisational development, and conduct further reviews and prioritisation.
One of the key areas identified for improvement through the previous Digital Maturity exercise was to improve access to digital channels for members of the public. Key scale up programmes such as Near Me and Digital for Mental Health have further supported this, whilst other national programmes are now underway such as the Digital Front Door which will build on this further.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to improve the (a) security capabilities and (b) resilience of its health and social care services’ digital systems.
Answer
The Scottish Government actively promotes cyber security in order to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks and protect against the unauthorised exploitation of systems, networks and technologies. We promote best practice, regulatory requirements, and global international standards for the improvement of Cyber security practices.
For the NHS, each Health Board must report improvements to resilience and capabilities to the Scottish Government through regulatory audits. In doing so the Scottish Government is able to monitor continual improvements by Boards against the Scottish Public Sector Cyber Resilience Framework.
The Scottish Government, have also established the Cyber Centre of Excellence to enhance its response to security. This will enable Scotland-wide management of cyber security services, that can be proactively, securely and consistently delivered across the NHS.
Additionally, supporting the adoption of Microsoft Office 365 across the health and care sector allows organisations to make use of the most up to date threat protection available from a trusted supplier.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what tools and training resources it has created to support the improvement of information governance and cyber skills within health and social care.
Answer
Since launching the Digital Health and Care Strategy in 2021 the Scottish Government has created various resources to support the improvement of Information Governance and cyber security skills, including but not limited to:
- The National IG Competency Framework for Health and Care which consists of tools, training resources, and career pathways that can be used to empower staff in areas of information governance, cyber security, data science, management of data and digital assets.
- The Scottish Information Sharing toolkit which includes tools and resources for information risk management, privacy and ethics, Incident response templates and playbooks.
- Working closely with academia and professional bodies to develop courses in data science and risk management to support staff with their Information Governance and cybersecurity skillset
- Providing grants to access training courses for people interested across health and social care, as part of their career development.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how many health and social care staff do not currently have the essential digital skills that they need to do their job, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information. This is a matter for individual NHS Boards.
