Investment in Digital
CHFT’s digital strategy builds on the significant investments made to date and the successful delivery of projects that have led to demonstrable benefits to both our patients and colleagues but also those of the wider healthcare community. As significant investment has been made to date, there is a requirement to continue to support and refresh the technologies in place. This includes replacement of hardware and systems but also the infrastructure supporting all these systems. This also includes additional security to comply with the latest best practice standards.
Funding the strategy will come from a number of sources. The plan outlines the Investment in Digital over the next 5 years and the funding streams available to us. Breakdown of capital investment over the next 5 years.
- Internal Capital
- Aspirant Funding
- Scan for Safety
- Pathology LIMS
- Imaging Collaborative
Year | Total Funding |
|---|---|
| 20/21 | £4.6M |
| 21/22 | £4.2M |
| 22/23 | £1.92M |
| 23/24 | £1.1M |
| 24/25 | £1.0M |
"Successful delivery of projects that have led to demonstratable benefits to both our patients and colleagues"
Revenue Expenditure
Revenue streams are already in place to replace existing systems additionally, it is likely that new funding streams will become available for specific developments and this may impact the prioritisation that takes place. A total of £7.3m Revenue Expenditure is budgeted for 20/21 this shows the level of commitment towards digital at the trust. Going forward it is expected that expenditure will be increasingly revenue based due to the nature of Digital services provided (i.e. cloud hosting).
The Digital Aspirant funding has a mixture between Capital and Revenue which reflects this changing nature of expenditure. Whilst CHFT is a leader in the use of digital technologies in the provision of healthcare across the UK, further investment is required to both maintain this position but more importantly to continue to push the boundaries and to deliver further benefits to patients and colleagues.
The financial governance supporting any investment is vital and any investment must be able to offer demonstrable benefits. This is not always easily defined for investments that continue to deliver what is currently in place. For this reason, it is proposed to develop two financial elements to the digital health strategy.
The first relates to ongoing technologies and infrastructure and the second to adoption of new technology. A provisional financial envelope will be created to support both elements of the strategy. This will comprise both of capital and revenue expenditure
