Technology has already transformed industries such as retail and banking and it is clear that digital technology has a significant part to play in transforming our health and social care services as well. In October 2014 the Five Year Forward View made a commitment that, by 2020, there would be “fully interoperable electronic health records so that patient’s records are paperless”.

In response to this, in September 2015, all Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG’s) were asked to produce a Local Digital Roadmap (LDR) which outlines how they will achieve the ambition of being ‘paper-free at the point of care’ by 2020 using technology.

Following this, South Tyneside CCG and Sunderland CCG came together to develop a joint LDR along with health and social care providers across the two localities. These providers are as follows:

In 2016, local health and care systems have also developed Sustainability and Transformation plans (STP’s) which highlight big opportunities to improve care by making common-sense changes to how the NHS works. Elements of this hinge on digital technology and so the LDR’s and STP’s were developed in parallel so that technology can make these changes easier. You can view the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and North Durham STP here.