NHS Fife has published its digital framework 2025-2028, placing a strong focus on integration through the development of an EHR and digital front door, information availability at the point of care, the wider adoption of linked data and informatics, digital enablement, skills development, technical infrastructure, and cyber security.
The board’s total digital allocation is recorded as £21 million, a reported 1.9 percent of NHS Fife’s total operating expenses. An allocation of £500,000 has also been made to support the board’s infrastructure lifecycle programme. There are a number of financial risks within the digital and information budgets, the board shares, including the introduction of a range of systems without full allocation of funding in the first instance, and additional costs passed on to boards associated with national decisions such as on Microsoft licensing.
A review of the health board’s 2019-2024 Digital and Information Strategy identified “strong progress” across areas including outpatient optimisation, patient communication tools, and cyber resilience, it states. Challenges were also highlighted around delays in national programmes, financial constraints, and “the need for greater agility”. Learnings from the strategy review have informed the development of the new digital framework, designed to allow for flexibility in a changing environment, the board notes.
An overarching theme of the new framework is responsiveness to change, allowing for a change in direction if required. “The value of reactive delivery was evidenced during the pandemic and remains a feature given the pace of transformation to deliver new models of care and ways of working,” the board states. Other themes include responsiveness to the needs of service users, benefit and change assessments to understand impact, shared ownership and sharing of digital knowledge and skills, clinical safety, and digital enablement to ensure safe engagement with digital tools and technologies.
On planning and performance, NHS Fife commits to digital strategic planning, defining objectives, focusing on common goals, and prioritising annual delivery plans and medium-term objectives to match strategic ambitions. Workforce planning and a focus on digital skills, recruitment, retention, and development of teams will support future ways of working. The approach to supply chain management will be standardised, the way information is collected and used will be formalised, and purchasing power will be leveraged for best value. Key suppliers will be benchmarked and regular reviews will be carried out into their performance.
For building and implementing, the board looks to application and platform convergence, architecture review, development and project implementation, service and product design, and data insight and analysis. Reviewing and reducing the number of applications and platforms in use will reduce costs around development and support, it states, and help ensure those in use meet the needs of service users. Collaboration with suppliers will converge applications into a single user interface, frameworks will be put in place to allow for efficient storage and transmission of data, and engagement will inform understanding of how digital can support users to work “more effectively and collaboratively”. Study data held by NHS Fife will be used to understand potential operational efficiency improvements and wider population health.
Operational delivery will include management and lifecycle of systems, upgrading the board’s “technological backbone”, ensuring patients have access to information and resources needed for appointments or treatment, converting physical records into digital formats, and running a digital hub as a central point for managing digital records and facilitating communication between providers and patients. System availability, performance, and business continuity will also be key, Fife continues, as will asset management in tracking and managing IT assets to ensure optimal utilisation, maintenance, and budgeting.
Large-scale programmes planned to 2028 include the Digital Medicines programme, eRostering programme, EHR programme, automation through Robotic Process Automation and AI programme, and the implementation of a Digital and Data Capabilities Model.
Setting out a timeline for work toward empowering patients, Fife shares key focuses for 2025-28 covering digital patient communications, self-booking, automated surgical pathways for pre/post assessments, sustained adoption of Connect Me and Near Me to support virtual and remote care, and extensions to the Hospital at Home and virtual wards services.
Around supporting clinical and corporate teams, the board plans to maintain progress with EHR, implement the Bookwise system to support enhanced utilisation of capacity, implement Infix to support effective theatre utilisation, adopt revised digital pathways for Same Day Emergency Care and Flow Centre, and upgrade TrakCare and Patientrack. Digital triage will be reviewed to support access to urgent and unscheduled care and flow, and a transition will be made to the National Model for Emergency Care. Also planned are a review of GP IT hardware and infrastructure, digital prescribing and dispensing pathways, the implementation of a Child Health System, and the continued expansion of digital therapies technologies and self-care/management apps.
Looking to engagement and partnerships, Fife describes how at the core of its framework is a revised engagement model, designed to make sure digital systems stay responsive to user needs and support effective working practices. “The enhanced engagement model will deliver deeper integration with clinical and corporate teams, enabling shared ownership and alignment to strategic and operational priorities,” it says. “The engagement will focus on building digital enablement and skills, fostering collaborative change, and ensuring that digital capabilities are co-designed, adopted, and sustained across all care settings.”
Wider trend: NHS digital transformation
West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has highlighted digital progress and outlined future priorities, focusing on EPR optimisation, establishing a shared digital workspace, embracing AI, and enabling a digital front door. Progress continues to be made on its EPR optimisation programme, the trust shares, with some of the latest developments including improvements to handover documentation, the launch of CDS iRefer in community and acute settings, and the broader rollout of Alertive. Smart Zone functionality has been introduced to reduce alert fatigue by prioritising the most important alerts. An electronic prescribing system is also now live in its virtual hospital and outpatients.
Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust has published its latest digital, data and technology strategy to 2030, showing a “clear shift from traditional IT and information to a more aligned approach of digital health and data science”. Main focus areas include the consolidation of systems into a single EPR platform, the use of AI and intelligent automation, access to information and services, data science, robust and “cyber safe” infrastructure, a digital and data-driven culture, and digital inclusion.
The board of Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust in its latest meeting discussed some of the initial outcomes, challenges, benefits, and opportunities from its newly launched EPR. The EPR went live in November 2025 alongside EPMA, at a cost of £50 million. The trust’s radiology information system, picture archiving and communications system, and laboratory information management systems were upgraded simultaneously.
