Why neighbourhood working needs digital ways of working

Neighbourhood working is central to the 'shift left' where care is delivered earlier in the patient journey and outside of costly hospital settings. This strategy moves from hospital to community and from treatment to prevention, ensuring patients have improved access to care and avoid unnecessary admissions.

This requires a rewiring of the way services are delivered. It requires information to flow in new ways and tools that support new ways of working. Many of the enablers of neighbourhood working are digital, and cannot be delivered without a focus on data and data management, and different ways of working.