ICT Strategy 2015 - 2018

Joint ICT Strategy
2015 – 2018

Draft v6.228thJanuary2015.

Contents

  1. ForwardPage 3
  2. VisionPage 3
  3. ICT Strategic principlesPage 3
  4. Business Needs and DriversPage 4

4.1 Digital First Welsh Govt StrategyPage 5

4.2 National ICT StrategyPage 5

4.3 Regional ICT CollaborationPage 6

4.4 NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS)Page 6

4.5 NWIS 3 year plan and national Strategy Page 8

5. Powyscombined Public Sector Page 10

5.1 Powys One PlanPage 10

5.2 PtHB integrated medium term PlanPage 12

5.2.2 IT partnership and Digital Powys Page 13

5.2.3 PCC / PtHB opportunity (Williams Report)Page 13

6. Service requirementsPage 14

6.1 Health, People, Place, Resources, Change and Governance Page 15

6.2 EducationPage 16

6.3 Support ServicesPage 17

6.3.1 Customer ServicesPage 17

6.3.2 WEB / Channel ShiftPage 17

6.3.3 Business support servicesPage 18

6.3.4 PtHB Business support systemsPage 18

6.3.5 Organisation and partnership DevelopmentPage 18

7. Regulatory pressuresPage 18

8. ICT GovernancePage 20

9. Skills and ResourcesPage 21

10. FundingPage 22

11. SummaryPage 23

12. Information ServicesPage 26

12.1 Enhanced and personalised customer experiencePage 27

12.2 Improved Business systems and reportingPage 29

12.3 Common IS Services, modern IS InfrastructurePage 30

12.4 Business continuity and disaster recoveryPage 32

  1. Forward

Powys County Council and Powys teaching Health Board have brought its ICTfunctions together in a partnership under s.33 of the NHS (Wales) Act 2006 to provide ICT services to the business and where possible combine and integrate those services for the benefit of services and/or to maximise the efficiency of the service.

This strategy builds on the previous 2011 joint strategy and details the ICT roadmap for the next 3 years, aligning (where possible) our organisations with wider Public Sector strategies.

The document should serve to inform and reassure the business that ICT will meet its needs over the coming years, and provide direction to those working on ICT enabled projects.

As business drivers or political focus changes, this document should be updated annually in line with the strategic planning cycles of both organisations, re-circulated and agreed in order to provide a contextual direction at any given time.

  1. Vision

This ICT strategy has two clear aims

1. It will support Powys County Council and Powys teaching Health Board in its ambitious transformation agenda the ‘Powys One Plan’. It seeks to support the business in transformation through technology enabled change both through innovation and integration.

2.The strategy will equip and maintain Powys County Council and Powys teaching Health Boardwith a flexible, up to date infrastructure that will support the business in carrying out its functions. It will (where appropriate) embrace Cloud technologies moving away from traditional on-site infrastructure and aims to allow our users to access systems atany time, from anywhere.

3. ICT Strategic principles

The strategic principles for ICT are driven by business needs and processes.

These are:

  • Our outcomes, business needs and business processes will drive the shape and form of our ICT systems
  • We will keep our ICT simple and adaptive
  • We will make it easy for our customers to access ICT services.
  • We will enable staff to self-serve ICT where appropriate.
  • We will make our systems safe and secure.
  • In supporting business needs we will look for National available solutions, then regional available solutions before Local available solutions in a ‘Once for Wales’, ‘Once for the Region’ or ‘Once for Powys’ approach to reduce duplication.
  • Where our population can, and want to, we will utilise online channels and transactions utilising e-business as much as possible
  • We will support and encourage innovation in self help and self care technologies as these begin to emerge.
  • We will use technology that supports widely geographically dispersed organisations
  • Our technology will help to drive efficiency
  • Our technology will be resilient to support incident response and allow quick disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
  • Our ICT solutions will be of appropriate scale. Where possible, and appropriate, we will use cloud services, existing solutions and shared services.
  • ICT systems will be bi-lingual where possible and appropriate.
  • ICT systems will up-hold our environmental principals, devices will be of low power consumption where possible and will enable users to communicate effectively avoiding unnecessary travel.
  • Our systems will be available to our users 24/7 (when they need them) in multiple locations

4.Business needs and drivers for change

Powys County Council (PCC) and Powys Teaching Health Board (PtHB) continue to face significant pressures, including:

  • The effects of recession on the population
  • Reduced funding from Government
  • Reduced levels of income from services
  • Increased service expectations & demand
  • An aging population
  • The need to deliver services over a large geographic area

To address these pressures and continue to provide the services that Powys needs both organisations and their partners are working together to make significant strategic change in the way that services are delivered.

PCC issued its first three year ICT strategy in September 2009 which focused on a major re-fresh of its ageing infrastructure. The strategy was revised in 2011 to re-align that strategy to the joint needs of PCC and PtHB in support of both organisations strategic change plans and aligning both organisations to the national ICT strategy.

This updated 3 year strategy continues to build on that alignment and looks to support both organisations in achieving strategic change via ‘the One Plan’ and service commitments for the coming years.

This ICT strategy aims to respond to the following:

  • Digital First Strategy
  • ICT strategy for Public Sector Wales
  • Powys Local Service Board ‘One Plan’
  • Powys County Council service plans
  • Powys teaching Health board Integrated Medium Term Plan
  • NHS Wales informatics service 3 year plan

The ICT strategy has also been influenced by the following corporate strategies and plans:

  • Business Continuity and disaster recovery planning
  • Information Governance and security
  • Channel Shift and Web strategies

The diagram above provides a visual representation of the influencing factors contributing to this ICT strategy. The views of key stakeholders across Powys County Council and Powys teaching health Board have also been key inputs.

4.1 Digital First – Welsh Government Strategy for better on-line services

Digital First is the Welsh Government’s strategy for providing better online services to the people and businesses of Wales. The original strategy was published in 2011 and has been updated in 2014 to take account of the rapidly changing digital environment with the rollout of superfast broadband across Wales.

Building on the Welsh Government’s substantial investment in fibre-optic broadband, which aims to make Wales one of the best connected countries in the world, the vision for Digital First is that Wales will become one of the best and most innovative providers of online public service in the world.

For PCC and PtHB the improving infrastructure provides further opportunities to increase and improve services provided on-line and to improve its own ability to provide easier access to electronic information to service users and staff.

4.2 National ICT strategy for the public sector in Wales

Developed by Welsh Government for Public Sector ICT in Wales, the National ICT strategy provides for greater collaboration across the public sector.

The ICT Strategy for Welsh Public Services should drive the scale of operation for ICT services. The Strategy presumes a national footprint (unless there is a demonstrable case to the contrary) with ICT systems being designed, developed/procured, configured, deployed and maintained nationally. Implementation and use can then be either regional or local with systems being configured to benefit particular front line services..

In the 2011-2014 Joint ICT strategy for PCC and PtHB there was an assumption that as delivery of the national ICT strategy progressed national IT organisations would become a provider of National IT to all public sector organisations... Apart from a number of tactical opportunities (e.g. PCC migrating to NHS Wales hosted email) this has not materialised and has hampered the speed of change in establishing joint ICT infrastructure between PCC and PtHB.

Even so, the vision remains that with all public sector organisations do things that are broadly similar andat a time of severe budget pressures it makes sense to share solutions and approaches to content, applications, resources, form design, customer journeys and other aspects of digital service development. This ICT strategy continues to look for nationally, then regionally before locally available solutions to where these are available. The community care information system (CCIS) all wales procurement is a good example of this.

4.3Regional ICT Collaboration

Powys County Council, Pembrokeshire County Council, Ceredigion County Council, Carmarthenshire County Council together with Neath, Port Talbot County Council and Swansea City Council have come together in a regional forum with a view to share across the region where opportunities arise. Powys County Council as part of this forum look to identify where business benefit (both PCC and PtHB as appropriate) is demonstrated and look to engage in those areas.

To date the group have developed the following capabilities with authorities at differing states of adoption:

-Regional Legal portal hosted by Swansea City Council

-Regional Emergency Planning system hosted by Ceredigion County Council

-Regionally developed Land charges system hosted by Carmarthenshire County Council.

-Regionally agreed web mapping and GIS standards

-Regionally led national public protection system specification for tender to create a national framework. (PCC public protection system in de-support from April 2015)

Moving forward the regional group is looking at the feasibility of:

-Regional roaming WIFI

-Regional authentication including citizen authentication

4.4 NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS)

National Health Service Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) aim is to:

To support the delivery of joined up patient care

To make the best use of scarce skills and resources by pooling/sharing wherever possible

To provide better professional development for informatics staff

To increase joint working with other Welsh Government Directorates

To increase joint working with Local Heath Boards

To create Integrated National Informatics Services

To provide common hosting arrangements for NHS staff in the Informatics Directorate

The organisation is working within the Minister for Health and Social Services’ mandate of “Once for Wales”.

This organisation is key going forward for a number of reasons:

-The NHS in Wales has a national development and delivery programme which PtHB has engaged with. The link between PtHB and NWIS is strengthening and starting to make use of the programmes and services available. It is important that, through the life of this strategy, the relationship is further strengthened so that the emerging programmes remains relevant to Powys teaching Health Board and its partners.

-Any development work around core NHS applications (which could be developed for Social care use) must be agreed by NWIS

-NWIS provides the development and support resources that PtHB lacks locally by national means for national products

PtHB NWIS programme phase 1 looked to deliver the following national infrastructure:

By 2014 all components are in place except the Welsh Clinical Portal and the Community System CCIS.

For PtHB, an effective Welsh Clinical Portal is dependent on access to all other Welsh Health Board’s Welsh Clinical Portal’s due to the fact that Powys patients access secondary care services from its neighbours. This provides a complex situation. NWIS are developing a national test requesting repository (TRRR) which once in place (est. 2015) would allow PtHB to implement a Welsh Clinical Portal with access to Powys patients regardless which Health Board they were treated at. It should be noted that access to clinical information from English providers would still need to be addressed.

4.5NWIS 3 year plan and National strategy

NWIS Three Year Plan

NWIS have reviewed and published a 3 year plan for 2014 to 2017 that is designed

to respond to a range of national strategies and plans for health and social care.

A revised e-health and care strategy is being produced (Mar 2015) that may amendthe

current 3 year plan.

The current 2014- 2017 3 year plan has the following priorities:

  • The development of common infrastructure, including data centres, data networks (e.g. PSBA), mobile platform, data storage facilities including private cloud capabilities extending across the NHS in Wales
  • Continued roll-out of systems to accurately identify patients and staff across Wales
  • Further development of systems that share essential information and messages between services, such as the Individual Health Record (IHR) and Welsh Clinical Communications Gateway (WCCG)
  • Progress adoption of systems that give better access to patient with systems such as My Health On-line (MHOL)
  • Further implementation of the Welsh Clinical Portal’s core clinical processes such as pathology and radiology requesting and reporting, medicines management and viewing of clinical information collected by other systems
  • Further roll-out of common systems, such as new GP Clinical Systems, the new LIMS for Pathology and Blood Services, and RadIS2 and PACS for Radiology and imaging services
  • Developing requirements and procuring a new system to improve document management and provision and sharing of the patient record, such as the Welsh Care Records Service
  • Progress national adoption of a Community Care Information System (CCIS) that bridges the information gap between Health and Social Care for Health Boards and Local Authorities.

For PtHB the NWIS 3 year plan has significant gaps notably the need to communicate electronically with English providers and the absence of integration with Local Government.

Powys, unlike other Welsh health Boards has significant activity with Shrewsbury and Telford hospital, Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital and Hereford Hospital. Over 40% of Powys patients are referred to English providers.

Discussions with NWIS have resulted in a Cross border national project with Powys as the pilot. The initial work is concentrating on establishing electronic referrals to and then discharges from the main English providers shown above. Further work is required to ensure appropriate linkage between the NHS and Local Government in support of the Digital Powys programme and the Community Care Information system (CCIS)

5.Powyscombined Public Sector

The Powys Local Service Board (LSB) is a partnership between Powys County Council, Powys teaching Health Board, Dyfed Powys Police and Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations (PAVO). Its aim is to improve the way the main public service organisations within Powys work together to tackle challenging issues, ensuring citizens receive better services.

The Powys ‘One Plan’ is the LSB strategic change plan that aims to transform service delivery at a local level based upon community needs.

The Local Service Board recognises the requirement to focus on service user outcomes and as such will used the combined nature of the Local Service Board to maximize user experience and maximize efficiency through greater collaboration.

5.1 Powys ONE PLAN - Achieving the vision

  • To achieve the vision of "Strong Communities in the Green Heart of Wales" The One Plan focus’s on 5 strategic change Programmes (Healthy Lifestyles Programme to be added 2015)

5.1.1Integrated Health and Adult Social Care –

  • Older People will be supported to lead fulfilled lives within their communities
  • Carers have a good sense of wellbeing and are able to fulfil the caring responsibilities they choose to do.
  • Powys citizens will lead fuller and longer lives, be resilient, have good health and be more able to participate and contribute to their communities.

5.1.2Children and young people –

  • The needs of vulnerable children, babies and their families are identified as early as possible so that they can enjoy safe and fulfilled lives.
  • Powys citizens will besupported and empowered to lead active and healthier lives.

5.1.3Transforming learning and skills –

  • All children and young people are supported to achieve their full potential
  • More young people in Powys will be in full time education, gainful employment or employment related training within the county.

5.1.4Stronger, safer and economically viable communities –

  • Bringing people together in Powys so they feel that they matter. Belong and can contribute to their community.
  • Improving passenger transport services to enable them to be affordable, accessible and efficient.

5.1.5Financially balanced and fit for purpose public services –

  • Enabling ‘joined up’ services for Powys citizens through public and third sector partnerships.

The five objectives outlined above focus on our priorities for improvement, we willalso be ensuring our day to day business continues to improve.

Appendix – Powys One Plan