>Labour’s Health Secretary has described the First Minister as an “analogue politician in a digital age” as he criticised the Scottish Government’s failure to develop an app for the NHS.
>Wes Streeting said Scottish patients were “missing out” and that there was “no excuse” for the devolved government not introducing an app similar to the one in England, which has been in place for six years.
>Plans to create an NHS Scotland Digital Front Door have been under way since 2022, but the first iteration will not be rolled out until the end of this year, starting in Lanarkshire before a national rollout.
>The app — which, according to Freedom of Information requests, the Scottish Government had spent £5.65 million on by March this year — is expected to include access to both health and social care data and services.
>Last week, Mr Streeting launched plans to give patients in England a “doctor in your pocket” as he announced improvements to the country’s NHS app, which already has 35 million users.
>The app currently allows patients to book GP appointments, order prescriptions and manage hospital visits.
>Mr Streeting said the lack of a national app in Scotland showed why the country “can’t afford a third decade of the SNP”.
>He said: “The UK Labour Government is embracing technology to deliver a better NHS for patients and their families, giving them more control and transparency over their treatment.
>“In John Swinney, the SNP have an analogue politician in a digital age, and patients in Scotland are missing out.
>“The SNP have record funding and complete control of the NHS in Scotland. There’s no excuses for this, and it just shows why Scotland can’t afford a third decade of the SNP and needs a new direction with Anas Sarwar as First Minister.”
>The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.
>Mr Swinney confirmed plans for the launch of the app in a speech on improving public services and NHS renewal at the National Robotarium in Edinburgh in January.
>He 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.”
>Meanwhile, the UK Government has said £5.8 billion of the £9.1bn uplift to the Scottish budget over the next three years will come from increased health spending.
>A breakdown published on Monday shows the biggest share of new funding comes via the Barnett formula as a result of health investment in England.
>While the Scottish Government can allocate money as it sees fit, ministers have repeatedly said they will pass on health-related increases to NHS Scotland.
>Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said the settlement marked “the largest real terms settlement for the Scottish Government since devolution”.
He’ll be accusing Swinney of being a socialist next….
Many thoughts on this. But unfortunately there is an element of truth here. We’re lagging behind in developing a digital solution for many of the annoying ills that befall our patients.
The obvious reply is: the NHS in Scotland still outperforms the NHS in England across a raft of key-targets.
But the truth is that if we’d just worked with the team that developed the English version instead of insisting on having a Scottish solution, most of us on here would already be using the app regularly. And the division will grow, because the English app is primed to become much more functional than whatever Scotland has on its roadmap, probably before we even get to talk about our own requirements to be included in the digital front door…
I do not see the issue with taking a cautious approach to a roll out. Sure you could roll it out nationally but you’d have to run it in parallel with current systems for a time, and that ain’t cheap and will mean other services would suffer. I’m all for more intergration of healthboards and services, but it has to be done right the first first time.
Let me guess Palantir is involved? Maybe a free suit or holiday or golden parachute?
The reason why the NHS has been slow on this is because every time it’s been attempted to digitise the system it’s been a colossal nightmare.
I’ll take an “analogue” politician over one who hides and refuses to release suicide figures for trans youth.
Isn’t this the line the Tories used against Brown in 2010? Not content with just reheating 80s homophobia and throwing it at trans people, he’s reheating his enemies’ own rhetoric lmao
Yes.
The failure of the nhs app is just the latest in a long line of Scotgov procurement and major project failures.
The ferries, the NCS, the DRS, the A9, The A96, the covid app, etc, etc and now this app.
It is the same failing to implement decisive accountable management repeated again and again.
Scotgov has a structural problem with the bureaucracy of state- deliverance of public policy is split across 40 odd directorates, over 130 quangos and about 1000 NGOs.
It creates a web of overlapping jurisdictions and interests which in turn has created a culture of excessive consultations and decisions by committee.
In practice meaning very little accountability and slow, expensive, decision making based on the broadest possible consensus.
Until the whole civil architecture is radically reformed it is going to be very difficult for any Scottish Government to complete complex projects.
Ofc this situation is the fault of the incumbents who have consistently relied on empowering and creating ever more quangos and ngos to deliver policy rather than build a conventional civil service.
That said, Sarwar’s Scottish Labour have said absolutely nothing about reforming the system should they get into power and I have no expectation they would do so.
Yes, but.
If you don’t own the app or the backend software you’re going to be beholden to the company you contracted who does.
Weird how the guy who is sponsored by tech companies to privatise the NHS is so keen on introducing technology into the NHS. These are the kinds of ideas that swallow billions of pounds, take many more years than promised to deliver and then promptly get hacked anyway.
Streeting kills kids cus he’s a spineless right wing cunt pretending to be a centrist at best I honestly don’t care what his opinion is on anything
The nhs Scotland website is a shambles compared to England.
Remind me how brilliantly the Labour run NHS in Wales is doing.
Can digitise all you want but it’s just polishing the turd of the NHS having to artificially inject market logic into its supply chain and bureaucracy.
Imagine right, we have the hiring of middlemen and their accompanying office structures that maintain the bureaucracy for private firms to bid on providing, random example, syringes for the NHS hospitals in a city. What if instead of needlessly building an ecosystem of graft through glorified drop shipper or management consultancy private medial contractors what if the NHS that just had a factory to build syringes then a guy who deals with orders from the NHS hospitals? Be a lot fucking easier to digitise and cheaper to maintain than the Byzantine web of contractors that is stupid.
Obviously Streeting knows all this and is paid by private companies to maintain this chokehold on my NHS service so it eventually collapses under the stress of private contractors to then be sold off the private contractors who make up 60% of donations to Streeting. He is just an evil evil person
Why do we need an app for healthcare? Give me just ordinary healthcare?
Hard to take that comment seriously when He’s a limp fist waving, substance-less clone right out the New Labour factory.
My surgery still runs on phone lines that can’t handle more than 5 people in the queue, my local msp is the secretary for health like is this really the best we can do?
I mean, he has a point. The 8am rush for doctors appointments is evidence of the SNP’s smug self congratulation that ‘we’re not as bad as NHS England’ only works if the NHS works. And it doesn’t.
The SNP should be embarrassed they’ve been caught bang to rights by a guy in the pocket of the US Healthcare industry.
Boys down the golfcourse in 2004 would’ve absolutely loved that patter.
24 comments
>Labour’s Health Secretary has described the First Minister as an “analogue politician in a digital age” as he criticised the Scottish Government’s failure to develop an app for the NHS.
>Wes Streeting said Scottish patients were “missing out” and that there was “no excuse” for the devolved government not introducing an app similar to the one in England, which has been in place for six years.
>Plans to create an NHS Scotland Digital Front Door have been under way since 2022, but the first iteration will not be rolled out until the end of this year, starting in Lanarkshire before a national rollout.
>The app — which, according to Freedom of Information requests, the Scottish Government had spent £5.65 million on by March this year — is expected to include access to both health and social care data and services.
>Last week, Mr Streeting launched plans to give patients in England a “doctor in your pocket” as he announced improvements to the country’s NHS app, which already has 35 million users.
>The app currently allows patients to book GP appointments, order prescriptions and manage hospital visits.
>Mr Streeting said the lack of a national app in Scotland showed why the country “can’t afford a third decade of the SNP”.
>He said: “The UK Labour Government is embracing technology to deliver a better NHS for patients and their families, giving them more control and transparency over their treatment.
>“In John Swinney, the SNP have an analogue politician in a digital age, and patients in Scotland are missing out.
>“The SNP have record funding and complete control of the NHS in Scotland. There’s no excuses for this, and it just shows why Scotland can’t afford a third decade of the SNP and needs a new direction with Anas Sarwar as First Minister.”
>The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.
>Mr Swinney confirmed plans for the launch of the app in a speech on improving public services and NHS renewal at the National Robotarium in Edinburgh in January.
>He 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.”
>Meanwhile, the UK Government has said £5.8 billion of the £9.1bn uplift to the Scottish budget over the next three years will come from increased health spending.
>A breakdown published on Monday shows the biggest share of new funding comes via the Barnett formula as a result of health investment in England.
>While the Scottish Government can allocate money as it sees fit, ministers have repeatedly said they will pass on health-related increases to NHS Scotland.
>Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said the settlement marked “the largest real terms settlement for the Scottish Government since devolution”.
He’ll be accusing Swinney of being a socialist next….
Many thoughts on this. But unfortunately there is an element of truth here. We’re lagging behind in developing a digital solution for many of the annoying ills that befall our patients.
The obvious reply is: the NHS in Scotland still outperforms the NHS in England across a raft of key-targets.
But the truth is that if we’d just worked with the team that developed the English version instead of insisting on having a Scottish solution, most of us on here would already be using the app regularly. And the division will grow, because the English app is primed to become much more functional than whatever Scotland has on its roadmap, probably before we even get to talk about our own requirements to be included in the digital front door…
Labour borrowing [Tory slogans](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/mar/23/uk.conservatives) seems on brand.
Much like his plans to privatise the NHS. [All these donations he’s received are above board I’m sure](https://goodlawproject.org/how-private-health-has-invested-in-wes-streeting/).
He’s right
I do not see the issue with taking a cautious approach to a roll out. Sure you could roll it out nationally but you’d have to run it in parallel with current systems for a time, and that ain’t cheap and will mean other services would suffer. I’m all for more intergration of healthboards and services, but it has to be done right the first first time.
Let me guess Palantir is involved? Maybe a free suit or holiday or golden parachute?
The reason why the NHS has been slow on this is because every time it’s been attempted to digitise the system it’s been a colossal nightmare.
I’ll take an “analogue” politician over one who hides and refuses to release suicide figures for trans youth.
Isn’t this the line the Tories used against Brown in 2010? Not content with just reheating 80s homophobia and throwing it at trans people, he’s reheating his enemies’ own rhetoric lmao
Yes.
The failure of the nhs app is just the latest in a long line of Scotgov procurement and major project failures.
The ferries, the NCS, the DRS, the A9, The A96, the covid app, etc, etc and now this app.
It is the same failing to implement decisive accountable management repeated again and again.
Scotgov has a structural problem with the bureaucracy of state- deliverance of public policy is split across 40 odd directorates, over 130 quangos and about 1000 NGOs.
It creates a web of overlapping jurisdictions and interests which in turn has created a culture of excessive consultations and decisions by committee.
In practice meaning very little accountability and slow, expensive, decision making based on the broadest possible consensus.
Until the whole civil architecture is radically reformed it is going to be very difficult for any Scottish Government to complete complex projects.
Ofc this situation is the fault of the incumbents who have consistently relied on empowering and creating ever more quangos and ngos to deliver policy rather than build a conventional civil service.
That said, Sarwar’s Scottish Labour have said absolutely nothing about reforming the system should they get into power and I have no expectation they would do so.
Yes, but.
If you don’t own the app or the backend software you’re going to be beholden to the company you contracted who does.
Weird how the guy who is sponsored by tech companies to privatise the NHS is so keen on introducing technology into the NHS. These are the kinds of ideas that swallow billions of pounds, take many more years than promised to deliver and then promptly get hacked anyway.
Streeting kills kids cus he’s a spineless right wing cunt pretending to be a centrist at best I honestly don’t care what his opinion is on anything
The nhs Scotland website is a shambles compared to England.
Remind me how brilliantly the Labour run NHS in Wales is doing.
Can digitise all you want but it’s just polishing the turd of the NHS having to artificially inject market logic into its supply chain and bureaucracy.
Imagine right, we have the hiring of middlemen and their accompanying office structures that maintain the bureaucracy for private firms to bid on providing, random example, syringes for the NHS hospitals in a city. What if instead of needlessly building an ecosystem of graft through glorified drop shipper or management consultancy private medial contractors what if the NHS that just had a factory to build syringes then a guy who deals with orders from the NHS hospitals? Be a lot fucking easier to digitise and cheaper to maintain than the Byzantine web of contractors that is stupid.
Obviously Streeting knows all this and is paid by private companies to maintain this chokehold on my NHS service so it eventually collapses under the stress of private contractors to then be sold off the private contractors who make up 60% of donations to Streeting. He is just an evil evil person
Why do we need an app for healthcare? Give me just ordinary healthcare?
Interesting, Scotchlab branch office completely sidelined.
Starmer losing faith?
Hard to take that comment seriously when He’s a limp fist waving, substance-less clone right out the New Labour factory.
My surgery still runs on phone lines that can’t handle more than 5 people in the queue, my local msp is the secretary for health like is this really the best we can do?
I mean, he has a point. The 8am rush for doctors appointments is evidence of the SNP’s smug self congratulation that ‘we’re not as bad as NHS England’ only works if the NHS works. And it doesn’t.
The SNP should be embarrassed they’ve been caught bang to rights by a guy in the pocket of the US Healthcare industry.
Boys down the golfcourse in 2004 would’ve absolutely loved that patter.
I have a rule not to trust baby faced 40 y/o.
Sound bite politics.
Comments are closed.