Forty leaders from across health and social care met this month at an NHSX round table, convened by PRSB, to share their ideas and solutions to the challenge of driving use of standards and interoperability.

It was a lively discussion, chaired by NHSX Director of Standards and Interoperability, Irina Bolychevsky and facilitated by Jon Hoeksma, CEO of Digital Health. Participants agreed that in order to make real progress with interoperability we need agreed processes for identifying and prioritising which standards are developed and adopted, and clarity about who does what and when to produce useful, usable standards that get used to drive interoperability across the health and care system.

We need to make it easy for vendors and provider organisations to comply by building in the right levers and incentives through robust procurement processes and regulation, for example. Participants also agreed that aligning information for direct care with data for research, commissioning and other purposes must be addressed. And importantly, these plans need to be shared widely and communicated regularly if we are to succeed.    

The round table was the final consultation event held by PRSB on behalf of NHSX to support developing the strategy for standards and interoperability that will embed digital ways of working across health and social care. NHSX will be publishing its findings shortly.