NHS England has opened a consultation for professionals across health and social care to input into future plans for national systems.
The programme aims to understand what professionals need from the ‘Spine of the future’ and how technology can meet the current and future needs of patients, staff and citizens.
As part of the consultation, NHS England is holding a supplier webinar to focus on future plans for the Spine and for anyone to share their needs for national services.
The session will also share the latest developments for the National Record Locator, MESH and integration with bookings and referrals.
NHS England said: “Through the programme we aim to remove barriers to access and innovation, and provide continuity of Spine services while enhancing the digital capability of the NHS.”
Adding that: “Since April 2022, work has started to develop a new platform to modernise the current NHS Spine over the next two to three years. A core element of the programme has been to make use of modern technologies to create a cloud-based Spine of the future.”
Stephen Koch, Executive Director for Platforms at NHS England, commented: “We want the Spine of the future to make the best use of modern technologies and open standards to ensure it meets the needs of NHS users for many years to come.
“That’s why we’re actively engaging the health and care system with the development of the Spine Futures programme. Last year’s migration of the MESH service to the cloud was a massive achievement for the teams involved and a significant first step in our Spine Futures programme.
“We’re asking colleagues working in health and care to tell us what they need from the Spine of the future as we take the next steps of our journey to transform IT in health and social care.”
To find out more or to register for the webinar, please click here.
