NHS England's Digital Academy for Health and Care has a simple mission: to educate teams working in health and care to deliver more value tomorrow than they did today. Our 2017 discovery work, to which over a thousand people contributed, gave us an understanding of what the workforce required to create a 'digitally ready' NHS.
A 'digitally ready' NHS needs to be both digitally willing and digitally able. And this involves digitally willing and able staff, including NHS leaders. From surveying chairs and chief executives of health and care organisations we learned that for many, digital was scary, misunderstood and as an agenda it was deferred to others. We needed to support these leaders and help boards lead for the 21st century.
The Digital Boards programme
In response, we commissioned NHS Providers to design the Digital Boards support offer for trust leaders. The programme aims to build board understanding of the potential and implications of the digital agenda and increase their confidence and capability to harness the opportunities it provides. Since March 2020, the Digital Boards programme has engaged over 2,000 trust leaders across over 40 events and almost 100 bespoke board development sessions.
The programme is supporting leaders to ensure digital becomes a board-owned priority, and as a result, is helping drive broader changes across the sector.
Unlocking the potential of the wider workforce
Boards are now playing a key role in leading the cultural shift required to embed digital transformation. And they are realising the value of their digital data and technology (DDaT) specialist workforce. This means creating an organisational culture that allows them to attract, retain and develop DDaT professionals.
The forthcoming Digital Workforce Plan expands on the NHS People Promise, and complements the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan, with a specific focus on building an expert DDaT workforce that can meet the digital transformation ambitions of the health and care sector.
Using digital to level up
For us at NHS England, levelling up ultimately means reducing health inequalities in every community in England. To address health inequalities, it's best to start at the "place" level to understand the demographics, services provided and what best supports the population locally.
Nationally, we can aid those local conversations by supporting infrastructure to share data, facilitating conversations with social care and the voluntary sectors, and putting the right "soft levers" in place to make it clear what we stand behind collectively. Digitally engaged board leaders can put this into action to drive meaningful change.
In 2021, we published the What Good Looks Like framework for digital infrastructure and digital transformation. But our ongoing process of co-creation ensures it continues to reflect best practice, including more considerations at place level, listening, and responding to what's worked well. Our intention is to reissue What Good Looks Like on an annual basis with up-to-date information that can support the planning cycle.
This year we also launched our three-year What Good Looks Like Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA), providing a maturity framework for leaders. Going forward, the DMA will provide data and insights for every level of the NHS as well as a tailored support package to use the evidence to inform digital transformation planning.
Engaging with integrated care boards and trust board members is vital to our ongoing work to digitise, connect and transform health and social care in England. The Digital Boards programme has been an invaluable part of that collaborative process.
Further support for leaders
The Digital Boards programme is just one part of the jigsaw of products that helps boards ask difficult questions about their role in delivering digitally enabled care. It's a starting point that helps boards consider the things that get in the way of an organisation providing more value tomorrow than it did today.
For senior digital leaders, including clinicians, the Digital Health Leadership Programme helps to cultivate senior digital decision-makers who create the right environment to try things and learn safely and quickly. Programmes such as the Topol fellowships, the Health Innovation Programme, and specialist programmes for nursing support staff working in frontline services to learn how to innovate and drive change. We will shortly be launching our Digital Skills Self-Assessment and Signposting Tool, aimed to support the development of healthcare staff in basic digital literacies for work in the modern era.
At a system level, we recently launched the Digital ICS programme, a support offer aimed at helping integrated care system leaders to seize the digital opportunity and deliver their system ambitions. The programme builds on learnings from the Digital Boards programme for trusts.
NHS Providers' Digital Boards programme has and continues to play an important role in growing the confidence of board leaders across the country, so that boards can own, shape and drive opportunities and overcome challenges of digital transformation to improve health and care for our local communities and people. We are grateful for their expertise and experience in helping move the digital dial across the system.
Reach out to the NHS Providers team to learn how your trust can get involved through the Digital Boards programme and how the Digital ICS support offer can aid your integrated care board colleagues to deliver digital transformation across the system.
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