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10 Financing the eHealth Programme
NHS Scotland currently invests significant sums on eHealth to support the running of the Health Service. A combination of capital and revenue amounting to some £225m was spent on IM&T in 2006/07 of which 22 per cent was spent on the 1,600 eHealth staff working in the Service and the remainder on computer software, hardware and related services.
The Strategy and the improvements it sets out must be affordable and sustainable. eHealth investment is made at both national and NHS Board level. This reflects the balance of roles and will continue into the future. The Strategy will, however, be underpinned by a finance strategy which envisages closer engagement of the national and Board budgets to produce an agreed investment plan. It will also be clear at the planning stage what the balance of national and Board funding would be in any new investments. The Strategy is designed to be affordable and reflects the increased investment being made available by the Scottish Government over the spending review period. New mandatory national systems will be funded from the Scottish Government who will also contribute to national systems where choice is operated at Board level.
Whilst there are no specific targets to increase expenditure in this area it is generally recognised that increased investment will be needed to support the delivery of patient care in the future. This theme was highlighted prominently by Audit Scotland. In recognition of this, the Scottish Government committed to fund future growth in eHealth as part of the recent Strategic Spending Review which sees the national eHealth budget progressively increased from under £40m in 2005/6 to a forecast £140m in 2010/11. This increase in funding is to be phased to ensure that change can be implemented and benefits realised as capacity increases.
The eHealth programme will be supported by an eHealth finance strategy developed and agreed with Directors of Finance.
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