Landmark agreement boosts technology collaboration between Wales and Scotland
A landmark agreement has been signed by NHS Wales and NHS Scotland, which will focus on sharing technology developments and expertise. The new arrangement creates the Health Informatics Service Alliance and provides a formal framework that builds on existing collaboration between the two countries. In the first agreement of its type, the alliance will support joint interests and open up opportunities to share new and existing digital solutions, to meet common requirements. NHS Wales already uses an electronic messaging system, developed in Scotland, to manage electronic referrals and discharges and cross-border exchange of patient information. Northern Ireland also uses the system for referrals and is expected to join the Wales/Scotland collaborative shortly. The agreement is founded on the key principles of co-operation and partnership to develop new and existing services, applications and ideas to achieve greater efficiencies, economies of scale and capacity to serve the health and social care economies in the member countries. "This collaboration will ensure that we can work together to deliver services effectively to benefit the member countries, with new opportunities to be gained from shared innovation," says NHS Wales Informatics Service Director, Andrew Griffiths. A service management board has been established to provide a forum to consider operational requirements including maintenance, development and decommissioning and to oversee quality and user requirements. It will also ensure sound governance and stewardship and help to embed a culture of sharing, re-use and collaborative development. "I am looking forward to the mutual benefits to be realised through the creation of the Healthcare Informatics Alliance," Martin Irving, Associate Director Architecture and Solutions Service, National Services Scotland says. "This is the beginning a new shared arrangement that will make the most of limited financial resources and shared technical expertise." "We are very pleased to formalise the existing collaboration between ourselves and NHS Scotland," says Mike Ogonovsky, NHS Wales Informatics Service's Head of Health and Social Care Informatics. "This will make it easier to maximise the use of resources by agreeing a shared development schedule and to prioritise shared requirements." The electronic messaging system is known as the Scottish Care Information Gateway in Scotland and the Welsh Clinical Communications Gateway in Wales. | 
NHS Wales Informatics Service has been awarded the upgraded version of the internationally recognised security standard, ISO 27001.
