“It is almost a paradox that we were looking to move away from shared services model and in-source IT to gain cost-savings and efficiency, when most organisations do it the other way round,” says Ian Arbuthnot, the IT director at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) NHS Trust.
Read more: GB: Sussex: Brighton hospital bucks trend by moving from shared services to in-house IT
CIOs from some of Britain's biggest enterprises are demanding a complete overhaul of the way the nation's young people are introduced to technology at school.
Their intervention highlights national concerns about both long-term industrial decline and the perceived need to instill real coding skills in schoolchildren as early as possible. While British kids are taught ICT (Information and Communications Technology) as a core part of the mandated syllabus (National Curriculum), they don't get much more practical exposure to the digital world beyond learning MS Office programs. Increasingly, it's become clear that Brits don't engage with enough of what makes tech work -- therefore becoming passive consumers of computers rather than creators.
Read more: U.K. Tech Chiefs Demand Revolution In IT Education
These cost savings will come from harnessing the benefits of shared services, including standardized processes, fewer errors, increased automation, leveraged technology, and more efficient use of resources.
The move, which is expected to cut costs and deliver care to prisoners held in remote parts of Scotland, is being rolled out by the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare.
Read more: GB: Scottish prisons and police cells get telehealth
The DH’s new strategy includes its commitments to improve the development of digital skills needed across the organisation, day-to-day efficiency, and impact of its open policy making. At the same time, the DH will also steward the health and care system towards a ‘health information revolution’.