The Welsh Government has reported that Health Secretary Vaughan Gething has announced over £5.5m for digital priorities within the Welsh NHS.

The funding will be targeted at improving access to information and introducing new ways of delivering care with digital technologies set out in the 2015 Informed Health and Care strategy. Welsh Government has worked with a collaboration of NHS organisations including NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) to prioritise and accelerate a number of key national clinical programmes to ensure the rapid delivery of agreed benefits across Wales. Some specific examples of where this funding will be used include areas such as:

• The Welsh Clinical Portal (WCP) which is the main access point to information for hospital clinicians. It pulls together key information from the many systems used by hospitals, allowing the clinician to view a patient’s record in one place and use a common system to perform various tasks, for examplr requesting tests, reviewing results or creating a discharge advice letter.
• The Welsh Community Care Information System (WCCIS) which supports the delivery of integrated health and social care services. This allows staff working in health and social care to use a single system and a shared electronic record of care.
• A Wales-wide review of each NHS organisation’s cyber security systems recognising the increased risk in this area. The review will inform the development of national and local cyber security plans.

Vaughan Gething said “In a modern NHS delivering world-class care in the 21st Century you need to have the most up to date information technology systems in place. If you want the best technology in the Welsh NHS, you have to invest in IT.”