EPR Summit Series (Scotland): Enabling the Digital Health and Care Record, through Data Standards and Citizen Impact

Current Landscape and Challenges:

Scotland is moving into a more demanding phase of digital transformation. The conversation is no longer only about implementing systems within individual organisations. It is now about how those systems contribute to a digital health and care record that can support clinicians, social care teams, local government services and, increasingly, citizens themselves. With the legal duty for a digital integrated care record now in force and with national thinking now underway on the Digital Health and Care Record, Digital Front Door, CHI in local government and the National Digital Platform, the challenge is how to turn ambition into something consistent, usable and trusted in practice. 

Many organisations are still working through the practical barriers that sit between strategy and reality. Data quality, information standards, interoperability, workflow alignment, change leadership and confidence in digital ways of working all remain live issues. Scotland’s own digital maturity work shows that workforce and citizen confidence still affect whether the benefits of transformation are fully realised, while national data strategy work is making clear that shared standards are foundational if digital care records are to work properly across settings. 

It is also timely because AI is moving from future-looking discussion into live policy, governance and operational questions. Scotland’s AI Strategy now treats AI as material to public service improvement, health-and-care policy work is developing a dedicated framework for safe and ethical adoption and national public engagement has already shown that citizens want efficiency gains without losing trust, transparency or human connection.