- 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 it plans to provide better access for health and care staff to appropriate data, to better analyse, understand and improve processes and services at different levels and better inform strategic planning priorities.
Answer
The Scottish Government continues to invest in platforms that will improve access and analytic capacities across health and social care. For example, we continue to invest in the development of our National Digital Platform and the Seer platform which will improve access to latest analytical tools and increase access to data for staff.
- 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 it is doing to increase awareness of cyber security and cyber threats within the health and social care sector.
Answer
The Scottish Government Cyber Resilience Unit hosts regular Public Sector Cyber Resilience Network webinars bringing together more than 150 information/cyber security experts from across the sector to raise awareness of the latest threats, share good practice and ensure that lessons are learned from incidents and exercises.
Specifically for the health sector, the Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCoE) has been established. The CCoE will empower continuous improvements by focusing on key enablement pillars including Centralised Security, 24/7 Monitoring, Threat Hunting, Incident Response and Training & Awareness. It is complimented by the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre (SC3) which will be a key partner to the CCoE, enhancing our national incident response capacity and capabilities.
- 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 much it has spent to improve the (a) security capabilities and (b) resilience of its health and social care services’ digital systems.
Answer
The Scottish Government conducts audits of Health Boards considered to be operators of essential services to obtain compliance assurance. From October 2021 – December 2022 we have spent £220,498. The Scottish Government has entered a new agreement for the delivery of audits, with up to £900,000 reserved for a third party to conduct audits over the next six years.
In addition, the Scottish Government has established the Cyber Centre of Excellence to enhance its response to security threats. For 2021-2022 the total spend was £420,000.
For further information on the Cyber Centre of Excellence and the security benefits of Microsoft Office 365, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14138 on 2 February 2023. 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 what it has done to further embed Office 365 across the health and care system.
Answer
Office 365 is already widely embedded across health and care with over 160,000 staff enabled to use the latest Microsoft Office software. A key part of this is a single tenancy agreement for NHS Scotland that supports a once for Scotland approach. Use of Office 365 by social care staff is the responsibility of local authorities.
In relation to health and care we have established the M365 Cross-Organisation Collaboration programme which is making it easier for health and social care staff to collaborate and share information. Early benefits from this programme include increased efficiency and improved working experience. The rollout of Phase 1 functionality across Scotland is underway, following successful integrations between NHS and Local Authorities.
We have also been working closely with NHS Education for Scotland to ensure ongoing training on Office 365 is provided to health and care colleagues.
Further information is set out in the annual delivery plan for digital health & care (see Care in the Digital Age: delivery plan 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ).
- 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 is doing to develop digital services in support of those in receipt of care at home.
Answer
Scottish Government is doing a range of things to support care at home. Delivery is ongoing, as set out in the annual delivery plan for Digital Health & Care (see Care in the Digital Age: delivery plan 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ). An update will be published later this year with delivery priorities for 2023/24, and will include an overview of progress against existing commitments.
In addition, key work is being taken forward through the digital telecare programme, being led by Local Government Digital Office (LGDO), to safely transition over 180,000 users of telecare in Scotland from analogue to digital telephony connections. This offers significant opportunities to look to further develop this service with more advanced technologies and better use of data. This has, to date, included the development of key resources for local areas through a developed digital telecare playbook.
As well as delivery aims set out in the healthcare framework for care homes - My Health, My Care, My Home - healthcare framework for adults living in care homes - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot ), further work is being taken forward through the national Technology Enabled Care (TEC) programme’s digital in social care activity - Digital Social Care | TEC Scotland.
- 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 often it (a) reviews and (b) publishes its
approach to ensuring any new technologies used in health and care comply with
its technical, data and design standards, and when it last did so.
Answer
There are existing organisations that evaluate new technologies including Scottish Health Technologies Group. Scottish Government operates a robust governance structure to review and support compliance of new and existing technologies. All programmes are required to comply with UK standards including those set by MHRA and ICO.The 2022-23 Delivery plan sets out further ambitions for our approach to digital futures.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has a permanent digital testing environment that allows potential new health and care technology to be developed and tested in a safe environment, and, if this is the case, how much was spent on developing it.
Answer
DHI offer a demonstration environment where new innovations and ideas for health and care can be tested. All health boards have their own test environments and processes. NES and NSS both have national test infrastructure. As part of all major programmes, testing is a critical component which is included in the overall funding for systems and technology.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 20 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done with (a) the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) (b) Innovation Centres other than DHI, (c) The Scotland 5G Centre, (d) the cyber resilience sector, (e) the Centre for Sustainable Delivery and (f) Public Health Scotland to ensure that Scotland gets maximum benefit from digital health and care.
Answer
The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the above bodies to ensure Scotland is maximising the potential of Digital Health and Care. We have developed Scotland's first data strategy for health and social care input from these bodies and are in the process of enhancing our role in innovation through work with the Accelerated National Innovation Adoption pathway.
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13542 by Humza Yousaf on 20 January 2023, whether there are any mandatory e-learning modules or training that are required to be completed for non-executive board members, and, if so, what they are.
Answer
Non-Executive Board members are required to undertake mandatory training at local level as a part of their local induction process. This is set out in the Director Letter DL(2019)21 - Induction process for Non-Executive Board Members . In addition, NHS Education for Scotland has a range of learning material available to Board Members. Current eLearning modules include: “Finance”; “Audit and Risk”; and, “Equality and the Role of Board Members in Meeting the Public Sector Duty”. These modules, whilst not mandatory, are recommended.
