Health and Social Care

I would like to amend a written answer that I gave to the House on 28 April 2022.

In response to written question 107645, I stated that those who are on legacy benefits and have change in status such as a new child would move to universal credit in order for their benefit claim to accommodate their change in status, and therefore will be eligible for the Healthy Start scheme. However, this information was not wholly accurate. Families on legacy benefits who have a first child move automatically to universal credit and so become eligible for the Healthy Start scheme. Families having a second or subsequent child may choose to remain on legacy benefits and, if they do, would not be eligible for Healthy Start.

[HCWS158]

I would like to inform the House that “A Plan for Digital Health and Social Care” has been published today. This document sets out how we will build a more digitised, more efficient and more personalised health and care system.

Earlier this year, I made a speech setting out my four priorities for reform in health: prevention, personalisation, people and performance. We cannot deliver the change We need to see, unless we embrace the opportunities from digital technologies.

We are now embarking on a transformative programme of reforms that will make sure the NHS is set up to meet the challenges of 2048, not of 1948, when it was first established, and also to make the vital changes that are so urgently required in social care.

On 13 June we published a strategy for a data-enabled health and social care sector, “Data Saves Lives”, which draws on lessons learned about the power of data from the response to the covid-19 pandemic. Data Saves Lives includes a range of commitments that will help connect systems and details how we will use data flowing through the digitised health and social care system to continually improve services while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and ethics.

The long-term sustainability of health and social care is dependent on having the right digital foundations in place, and so digital transformation is crucial in achieving and delivering these reforms.

This plan sets how the delivery of health and social care will change, taking forward what we have learnt from the pandemic, and from tech pioneers across the world. The aim is something that we can all get behind: a health and social care system that will be much faster and more effective, and delivers more personalised care.