Connected digital systems

Data from patient health and adult social care records helps us to improve individual care, speed up diagnosis, plan local services, research new treatments, and ultimately, save lives. Ensuring that staff and patients have access to the right data, at the right time, is vital to the NHS providing effective, safe, good value services.

To achieve this, our systems must be digital and interoperable. This means that they are able to talk to each other, so that data can flow seamlessly between different IT systems and across health and care settings.

To make this a reality, we’re helping organisations to assess their digital capability, working with local health and care systems with their local digital plans, and supporting our most digitally advanced organisations, known as Global Digital Exemplars, to share what they know with other trusts. Alongside this, we are supporting the safe and secure sharing of individuals’ health and care information through creation of shared care records.

We’re committed to keeping patient data safe and sharing it securely and lawfully, and always being clear about why it is used. Our NHS networks and systems for storing and sharing data are managed by NHS Digital using world-class standards of cyber security.