Health and social care - data strategy 2025 update: easy read

Success so far

This is the second year since the Data Strategy was published and good progress is being made.

Good use of data supports services to be planned and managed well by:

• showing what services people living in an area need
• supporting research and new ways of working to make treatments better

Digital Front Door is an online way for people to get:

• their health and care information
• health and care services

The Digital Front Door will be an important way to make it easier for people to get data.

The first version of the plan will launch in December 2025 in NHS Lanarkshire for dermatology outpatients.

It will let people:

• get personal health and care information
• see appointments
• get information about online services

The work in the plan will then happen across Scotland.

It will support the delivery of other digital and data services like the Digital Health and Care Record.

This record makes it easier for people to get the right data at the right time.

A Safe Haven is a secure computer

system where health and social care data is linked with other data and made available for research.

A new Safe Haven Charter:

• sets out how Safe Havens in Scotland will work
• makes it easier for people to get data for research and new ways of working
• helps the people in charge of handling personal data know that everything is being done safely and correctly
• supports our plan to have new ways of working

This will make it easier:

• for more people to get data
• for research to happen more quickly

This will make care services better for people in Scotland.

A CHI number is given to each patient registered with the NHS in Scotland.

CHI numbers will be used in local councils.

This will make sure that:

• work is not done more than once
• patients will not have to tell their story more than once
• people’s information can be easily linked and shared

This will help staff giving health and social care services:

• work better together
• get the right data at the right time
• give people better outcomes

In July 2024 we published the Digital and Data Capabilities Network.

It can be used by all staff and organisations working in health and social care in Scotland to:

• see what digital skills they need
• know what behaviours and attitudes they must have

The Scottish Government, COSLA, NHS and SOLAR are working together on ways to have Information Sharing Agreements with local councils.

This would make it easier to share information between health and social care services.

SOLAR is the Society of Local Authority Lawyers.

The Scottish Government published a response to a report made by the UVOD group – ‘Unlocking the value of data’.

It explained the Scottish Government policy about when private companies can get public data for research.

This can only be done:

• when it will benefit everyone
• when the information is anonymous – you cannot tell who the information is about