Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Digital Transformation Fund.

The Adult Social Care Digital Transformation Fund helps care providers to digitise by providing financial support for the adoption of Digital Social Care Records (DSCRs) and other care technologies. This fund is part of the Digitising Social Care programme, which delivers commitments set out in People at the Heart of Care. So far, we have invested almost £50 million to help care providers digitise and will invest a further £100 million over the next two years.

Since the programme’s inception, adoption of DSCRs has increased from a baseline of 40% in December 2021 to more than 50% now. DSCRs have been shown to deliver significant productivity benefits, releasing up 20 minutes per care worker per shift on average. The programme works with teams in the integrated care systems across England to develop plans, track uptake of technology and collect evidence on the impact of this work.