Value based health and care action plan: measurement framework

Action 3

Through national digital health and care strategies, the Scottish Government will work with delivery partners to support development of digital technology and provide data that enables professionals to practise Realistic Medicine and deliver VBH&C.

Progress overview and future priorities

Several key digital workstreams are referenced in the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan, Service Renewal Framework, and Population Health Framework. These include the Digital Front Door, NHS inform, digital theatre scheduling, digital mental health, and digital dermatology as well as remote monitoring services and a commitment to embedding and mainstreaming learning from the Digital Inclusion Programme.

Near Me has provided 2.5 million video consultations to date, saving an estimated 103 million travel miles. In the past year the Scottish Government have conducted a wide-ranging review of NHS Inform including extensive stakeholder engagement. In July the second annual update of the Health and Social Care Data Strategy was published. Connect Me has supported 120,000 people to date across a range of remote monitoring pathways and is now live in 13 NHS Health Boards, saving an estimated 400,000 unnecessary appointments. In the coming year the Scottish Government will focus on making Connect Me more available across a wider range of conditions including heart failure, prostate, and lymphedema.

The Digital Front Door programme went live in December 2025 with an initial cohort of dermatology patients in NHS Lanarkshire. The MyCare.scot service will be developed iteratively and rolled out across Scotland, with the service made available in some form across the whole population from April 2026. The Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre will build on the NHS Inform engagement work as part of the service redesign phase, including research to inform the business case.

Monitoring metrics

The monitoring metrics for Action 3 draw on a combination of administrative usage data from national digital health services (including Near Me and Connect Me) and survey data from health and care professionals. Together, these metrics provide insight into the scale and impact of digital service use, levels of professional engagement and barriers to adopting digital tools that support Value Based Health and Care.

Metric 3.1: Approximately 316,000 consultations^[5] with Near Me were carried out in 2025.

Metric 3.2: 23.01 million patient travel miles were avoided in 2025 through Near Me consultations.^[6]

Metric 3.3: 41% of health and care professionals surveyed reported using Near Me to support the care they provide.

Metric 3.4: 27,643 individuals were enrolled (recruitment) for Connect Me in 2025.

Metric 3.5: The proportion of health and care professionals surveyed who had faced the following barriers when using digital technology to support the delivery of VBH&C:

• lack of awareness of available digital technologies (62%)
• insufficient time to learn or integrate new technologies into practice (52%)
• insufficient training, confidence or knowledge on using these tools (44%)