The voice of nurses and midwives across the digital healthcare landscape is ‘getting louder’, with the coverage of those in leadership positions at an all-time high, NHS England’s chief nursing information officer (CNIO) has said.
Helen Balsdon gave a speech this week at the Digital Rewired Health conference in Birmingham in which she stressed the importance of not ‘leaving anybody behind as we go on a journey towards digital transformation’.
In an update on the number of CNIOs across England – a leadership role that oversees technology implementation – Ms Balsdon said the ‘coverage’ of those in post across England is ‘the best it’s ever been’.
She said that currently, 58% of community providers have a CNIO role in place, as well as 60% of mental health organisations and 91% of hospitals.
At the same conference last year, Ms Balsdon has stressed the need for more digital nursing leaders ‘outside of hospitals’, suggesting there were very few based in community settings.
She said the increasing number of CNIOs was a good thing and that the ‘voice of the non-medical profession is getting louder’ within the digital healthcare space.
But she stressed there were still ‘gaps’ in knowledge around digital transformation among the wider workforce and that efforts must be taken to ensure no one is left behind ‘as we go on a journey towards digital transformation’.
‘A reset moment’
Speaking a week after the government announced its scrapping of NHS England, which is merging back into the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Ms Balsdon said there was currently a ‘reset moment’.
‘Clearly, lots of announcements in the last week, but we’ve got a reset moment, and that’s going to impact every layer of the system,’ she said.
‘We’re going to need to make some difficult decisions, and we’ve got to make those decisions as a collective to make sure that we raise the challenge together and we use our voice and our networks to be the best that we can be.’
Ms Balsdon told attendees that the future of digital nursing relies on having the ‘foundations in place’ but will also require using data to ensure better quality of care and to better standardise how digital care is delivered.
‘We need to be smarter and faster together so that we can actually drive the pace of change, we’ve got to innovate,’ she added.
‘That will come through new technology and not being afraid to fail.’
The push towards digital healthcare is being seen throughout general practice and community nursing, with the Midlands Social Care Nursing Advisory Councils (SCNAC) currently prioritising digital development across the region.
10-Year Health Plan
Ms Balsdon said the future of nursing requires a ‘digitally enabled NHS’ that will be delivered as part of the government’s 10-Year Health Plan.
She described a ‘digitally enabled NHS’ as being a ‘digitised, connected and integrated’ system which uses data to ‘drive change and improvements’ through ‘safe and intelligent’ digital architecture.
The CNIO added that data is central to delivering ‘new models of working’ to deliver on the ambitions of the 10-Year Health Plan.
‘We are stronger together. Most certainly, we need to develop what we are, build the talent of the future and those emerging leaders so that we’re leaving wrong legacies for the future,’ she added.
‘Digital and data is that future.’
The move towards digital healthcare is core to the government’s three big shifts outlined in the plan, moving from analogue to digital, hospital to community and sickness to prevention.
