Scotland’s first data strategy for health and social care published

The Strategy was promised by the Scottish Government following the refresh of its Digital Health and Care Strategy in 2021.

The Scottish Government’s Data Strategy for Health and Social Care sets out to “improve the care and wellbeing of people in Scotland by making best use of data in the design and delivery of services”.

The Strategy aims to transform the way we interact with our health and social care data by empowering citizens, staff and supporting research and innovation. Access the full document here.

The Strategy sets out eight priority action areas, including.

• Embedding an open, ethical, and human rights-based approach to the use of data that ensures public trust and confidence. This includes eight principles of data use and collection.
• Greater data access by the public and professionals. For example, the development of the Digital Front Door will provide a way for people to access and control some of their data.
• A more streamlined and consistent approach to Information Governance across health and social care to ensure that data is protected. The Strategy acknowledges that the current system is fragmented.
• Ensuring that the workforce has the correct skills and knowledge. This includes the development of a formal postgraduate programme on data and a focus on developing leadership skills.
• Contributing to net zero targets by reducing duplicated data and moving towards capturing data in digital formats. For example, developing digital prescribing which removes the need for a paper prescription slip.
• Making it easier for data to be shared across health and social care. With current approaches, data is stored in many different systems making data sharing a challenge. This leads to unnecessary duplication and puts a burden on people to ‘retell their story’.
• Data standards will be made consistent across organisations, including using the FAIR principles. This means that data must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.
• There are also other priority actions which include creating insights from data and supporting research and innovation.

ALLIANCE members, including the Digital Citizen Panel, positively engaged in the development of the Strategy and were keen for non-digital approaches to be readily available, which appears to be recognised within the Strategy. This view is also supported by our Digital Human Rights Principles, which were coproduced back in 2021 in partnership with Scottish Care and VoX Scotland, however it is important to ensure digital choice is available to people, without compromising the quality of care they experience.

The ALLIANCE also responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation calling for principles of human rights, trust and transparency to be at the heart of the Strategy, so we are pleased that some of our recommendations towards a commitment of adopting a human based approach, following the PANEL principles has been incorporated into the Strategy.

Chris Mackie, Digital Assistant Director at the ALLIANCE said:

“We hope that the Data Strategy will achieve its aims and therefore contribute to an overall improvement in health and wellbeing in Scotland. However, people tell us of their desire for full access and control of their records. We must also ensure that reality matches ambition, with no one left behind, ethical approaches maintained, and human rights embedded in all developments.”

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