Pre-COVID-19, Scotland’s health and care systems were on a clear pathway to closer integration and digitisation. But the pandemic has forced leaders to move  service delivery online at a much-accelerated pace – transforming digital first rhetoric into a liveable reality for millions of citizens overnight. Platforms were rapidly spun up and years of change were compressed into a matter of months. This session will explore how public sector leaders responded to an unprecedented challenge, what lessons were learned for our national strategic aims and what a global pandemic will mean for the future of technology-led health and care. 

One of the great goals of a successful digital health and care strategy is to join up systems. This session will explore how data is handled, how it is secured and how it can be made available to the people who need access to it - in order to be provide truly transformational health and care.

The Scottish Approach to Service Design (SAtSD) has embedded itself as a core driver in the development of public services since the influential Christie Commission of 2011. The future of health and care will increasingly be ‘person-centred’ in line with national strategic aims to create electronic health records (EHRs) for every citizen. This session will explore wider service design considerations in health and care, including scaling efforts of Existing services and content to improve information provision for COVID-19.

Remote patient monitoring and home-based care systems have enabled local health and care resources to be directed at Scotland’s vulnerable and at-risk communities. Whether for the management of lifelong conditions, or to protect the elderly and frail at home, telecare solutions have long pre-dated COVID-19. They continue to be upscaled and delivered free at the point of use during the pandemic, with the formation of a National Telecare COVID-19 Advisory Group to oversee progress. This session will explore how a ‘Once for Scotland’ approach has been adopted as those services face a transition from analogue-based call systems to digital in the coming years.