A £680 million funding package is available to NHS organisations and health care partnerships across England to support technology projects.
The funds aim to:
- Level up the digital maturity of NHS trusts and consortia
- Ensure a basic shared care record is in place within all Integrated Care Systems (ICSs)
- Level up cyber security capabilities, address key infrastructure and other specific weaknesses, with continued provision of back-up reviews
- Scale what we know works to improve productivity throughout health and care
- Support the digitisation of the pharmacy, optometry, dentistry, ambulance and community services sectors, and improve interoperability
- Increase system capacity and resilience of diagnostic services. Improve safety and experience for patients and staff through digital capability and reduce manual processes
- Improve outcomes for women and their children and also to improve safety of clinical care.
Value Notes
A total of £680 million is available across eight funding schemes:
- Frontline digitisation – £308 million (Capital funding of £263 million and revenue funding of £45 million)
- Shared care records – Capital funding of £50 million
- Cyber security infrastructure fund – Capital funding of £27 million
- Digital productivity – Capital funding of £4 million
- Digital pharmacy, optometry, dental, ambulance and community (PODAC) – £6 million (Capital funding of £2.5 million and revenue funding of £500,000 for the ambulance sector. Capital funding of £2.5 million and revenue funding of £500,000 for the community sector)
- Diagnostics – Capital funding of £235 million
- Digital maternity – Combined capital and revenue funding of £50 million
- Digital child health – TBC.
Each fund has its own application deadline:
- Frontline digitisation – 15 October 2021
- Shared care records – 22 March 2022
- Cyber security infrastructure fund – 23 December 2021
- Digital productivity – 30 November 2021
- Digital pharmacy, optometry, dental, ambulance and community (PODAC) – 7 October 2021
- Diagnostics – 23 December 2021
- Digital maternity – Not currently open. Will open to bids on 18 October 2021
- Digital child health – Not currently open. Will open to bids on 18 October 2021.
