>The Scottish government has been working on the app, which will include access to both health and social care data and service, since 2022,
>In a speech on improving public services and NHS renewal, at the National Robotarium in Edinburgh on 27 January 2025, Swinney said: “As a much-needed addition to improve patients’ interaction with the NHS, there will be a Scottish health and social care app.
>“This Digital Front Door will begin rollout from the end of this year, starting in Lanarkshire, and, over time, it will become an ever more central, ever more important access and management point for care in Scotland”.
>The Digital Front Door is intended to allow people to access, self-manage, and contribute to their health and care information online, providing digital notifications, access to personal health information and options for patients to interact with health and social care services.
Prior to this, it was planned to launch by the end of parliamentary term, so an earlier launch (although not by much), is welcome.
This will be similar to the NHS App in England, and officials have been working with those developers for best practice. The reason the app couldn’t just be the same, according to the people working on this, is that the English NHS app was set up to accommodate English NHS trust IT infrastructure (as would be expected), and is incompatible for Scotland. They’ve also mentioned that the app will include social care as well, but I’m not quite sure what would entail.
Regardless, I’m glad to finally be getting an NHS app, its overdue.
Including Social Care data is a big mistake. They should just roll it out with NHS data to start with then include Social Care data later. Why does the Scottish Government always get these decisions wrong?
Stuff like this really epitomizes the SNP’s lack of vision. If you polled the public and staff about what’s wrong with the NHS, lack of an app with a buzzwordy name would be somewhere near the bottom of the list. But they won’t defy the norms at UK level, where shoveling money to consultancies is always the default option.
Show me the digital backdoor
I attend multiple NHS appointments a month and have constant numbers to track progress, appointments to track, difficulty accessing care by phone.
Give me the app that’ll help with all that. I’ll sign up day one
Frankly I’d just like to be able to access my payslip without going into work to log onto an nhs computer
Well, we will see. It is a good sign of intent and I know that several of the boards are lining up to make this work, but it’s a massive project. If this isn’t backed with a proper investment in data storage and processing capability that meets the highest standard of security, as well as proper and appropriate 2fa for end-users and clear and practicable policies for healthcare workers than it is going to take a LONG time to come to fruition.
Managing the front door is crucial to reduce service pressures and delayed discharges so this is very welcome.
Curious as to what the social care functionality will be, given the disconnect between health and social care (public bodies joint working act notwithstanding). I assume it will be about making a referral to your local authority for a community care assessment, the same way your GP or hospital ward (or indeed you yourself can do right now).
Looking forward to this
The NHS App “down south” is really pretty good and keeps evolving. Shouldn’t have taken Scotland this long.
This is great news.
Heard good things about the English version and we’re basically using the same code and tweaking it for our set up.
Will be a big step forward. Hopefully old people will be supported to learn how to use it
Scotland, never happen.
Sounds interesting- look forward to seeing how it works. In this day and age – it feels far simpler to have an app which can store and manage things.
The English app works really well. C’mon Scotland let’s do better!
Wtf is a National Robotarium?
When I lived in England, I had the NHS App and it was excellent. I was sad when I moved to Scotland and realised it was an England thing. Looking forward for the app to come out.
I work in IT for one of the NHS Boards.
This is going to be an absolute nightmare. All the boards use different IT systems and half of them don’t talk to each other.
18 comments
>The Scottish government has been working on the app, which will include access to both health and social care data and service, since 2022,
>In a speech on improving public services and NHS renewal, at the National Robotarium in Edinburgh on 27 January 2025, Swinney said: “As a much-needed addition to improve patients’ interaction with the NHS, there will be a Scottish health and social care app.
>“This Digital Front Door will begin rollout from the end of this year, starting in Lanarkshire, and, over time, it will become an ever more central, ever more important access and management point for care in Scotland”.
>The Digital Front Door is intended to allow people to access, self-manage, and contribute to their health and care information online, providing digital notifications, access to personal health information and options for patients to interact with health and social care services.
Prior to this, it was planned to launch by the end of parliamentary term, so an earlier launch (although not by much), is welcome.
This will be similar to the NHS App in England, and officials have been working with those developers for best practice. The reason the app couldn’t just be the same, according to the people working on this, is that the English NHS app was set up to accommodate English NHS trust IT infrastructure (as would be expected), and is incompatible for Scotland. They’ve also mentioned that the app will include social care as well, but I’m not quite sure what would entail.
Regardless, I’m glad to finally be getting an NHS app, its overdue.
Including Social Care data is a big mistake. They should just roll it out with NHS data to start with then include Social Care data later. Why does the Scottish Government always get these decisions wrong?
Stuff like this really epitomizes the SNP’s lack of vision. If you polled the public and staff about what’s wrong with the NHS, lack of an app with a buzzwordy name would be somewhere near the bottom of the list. But they won’t defy the norms at UK level, where shoveling money to consultancies is always the default option.
Show me the digital backdoor
I attend multiple NHS appointments a month and have constant numbers to track progress, appointments to track, difficulty accessing care by phone.
Give me the app that’ll help with all that. I’ll sign up day one
Frankly I’d just like to be able to access my payslip without going into work to log onto an nhs computer
Well, we will see. It is a good sign of intent and I know that several of the boards are lining up to make this work, but it’s a massive project. If this isn’t backed with a proper investment in data storage and processing capability that meets the highest standard of security, as well as proper and appropriate 2fa for end-users and clear and practicable policies for healthcare workers than it is going to take a LONG time to come to fruition.
Managing the front door is crucial to reduce service pressures and delayed discharges so this is very welcome.
Curious as to what the social care functionality will be, given the disconnect between health and social care (public bodies joint working act notwithstanding). I assume it will be about making a referral to your local authority for a community care assessment, the same way your GP or hospital ward (or indeed you yourself can do right now).
Looking forward to this
The NHS App “down south” is really pretty good and keeps evolving. Shouldn’t have taken Scotland this long.
This is great news.
Heard good things about the English version and we’re basically using the same code and tweaking it for our set up.
Will be a big step forward. Hopefully old people will be supported to learn how to use it
Scotland, never happen.
Sounds interesting- look forward to seeing how it works. In this day and age – it feels far simpler to have an app which can store and manage things.
The English app works really well. C’mon Scotland let’s do better!
Wtf is a National Robotarium?
When I lived in England, I had the NHS App and it was excellent. I was sad when I moved to Scotland and realised it was an England thing. Looking forward for the app to come out.
I work in IT for one of the NHS Boards.
This is going to be an absolute nightmare. All the boards use different IT systems and half of them don’t talk to each other.
Idk what this means but dope?
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