The information held in the National Clinical Data Store (NSCDS) currently contains data on vaccinations and anticipatory care plans (ReSPECT) and forms part of the patient’s clinical record. NCDS is interoperable with other core systems and supports our ambitions of ensuring that information is available to staff when and where they need it.

The Scottish Wide Area Network has been widely used across all of the NHS and much of the rest of the public sector in Scotland since 2014. With the contract coming to an end, procurement was commenced and the contract for the ongoing delivery of SWAN was awarded to BT on 12th April 2023 for 6 years. Work is now underway to transition organisations from the incumbent supplier to the new BT-supported network from August 2023 (with planned roll out of new service still scheduled for 2026).

The Leading in the Digital Age Board Development Workshops has undergone two stages of development. The first stage was the design of the content which involved engaging with users and stakeholders to inform the resources required and workshop content. The next stage has involved training the facilitators and further development of content. This work is now moving into the testing phase.

Please see answer to question SW-18813 on 20 June 2023 for how we support innovation through demand led challenges.

We established the Digital Mental Health Programme in 2020 to respond to the increased demand for mental health services by integrating and maximising use of digital, increasing existing service capacity and resilience within each health board.

We continue to work with Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre (DHI) to host the digital mental health innovation cluster and identify opportunities for reinforcing a robust mental health infrastructure. Since its launch in March 2022 the cluster has recruited 950 members from across clinical, academic and industrial stakeholders and promotes innovation through the development of collaboration facilitated through a number of clusters events the latest focused on three key areas: prevention, greater access to services and support for mental health services staff.

Through continued investment in the national ‘GP IT’ re-provisioning programme, Health Boards will have the ability to offer new and advanced, modernised systems for General Practice in Scotland. This dedicated resource supports the integration of primary, community and social care and facilitates increased standardisation of GP IT and integration into the wider eHealth infrastructure.

Cegedim (who offer the Vision product) passed Accreditation to allow rollout of the new Vision system in March 2022. Since July 2022, the migration process has been underway, with over 100 practices now on the new Managed Services across four health boards (NHS Tayside, Lanarkshire, Lothian and Grampian).

The new system provides a number of improvements for GPs and practices in relation to appointments, prescribing, connectivity to systems, shared community care and more robust centralised hosting.

The second national Digital Maturity exercise commenced in March 2023 and concludes in June 2023. A national report summary will be published in the Autumn.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The recently released Data Strategy for Health and Social Care details a set of ethical principles for the use of data across our health and care sector. These principles are applicable to the use of AI as well as the broader use of data.

Furthermore, the Data Strategy sets out our intent to work towards the safe adoption of AI tools, working to international best practice. We have also committed to developing a policy framework for adoption of AI across health and by Spring 2024.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18800 on 20 June 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Our primary focus on improving telecare services is in supporting the migration of existing analogue devices to new, more sophisticated, digital devices to ensure telecare services remain fit for purpose following the UK-wide switch-over of telephone lines to a digital infrastructure.

Local Government Digital Office (LGDO) has been commissioned by Scottish Government to lead on this work and are currently taking forward a tender to develop a national digital telecare Alarm Receiving Centre solution that will support a more joined up service across HSCPs (Health and Social Care Partnership) and housing providers offering telecare in Scotland.