Can We Have Core Principles for Scottish e-Government and e-Health?

I’ve been reading up on the way that countries have transformed their health and social care infrastructures. At the core of this is strong leadership and vision provided from the top. Strong cybersecurity also plays a strong role is this, too. Those countries who succeed have often transformed their economies through digital innovation, also enhance the lives of their citizens.

The UK does not have a good track record with large-scale IT projects, and where an investment in Connecting for Health was cancelled after an investment of over £15 billion. Scotland, too, invested over £10 million into the development of systems around the Named Persons Act, and which few people actually know how the system would actually work. In the UK and Scotland, closed systems — developed by large companies — have not been a success. The meaningful digital interaction between the UK/Scottish governments and their citizens is minimal at its best, and almost non-existent in most places.

So while other countries in the world advance their electronic infrastructure for government and health care services, the UK and Scotland stay stuck without a proper identity system — and this is not a citizen ID system — and with little in the way of interaction between the government and its citizens. Why? Perhaps because there is…