Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 20 February 2026.
Jim Shannon
DUP, Strangford
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to digitise patients’ medical records.
Zubir Ahmed
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care
£1.9 billion has been invested to ensure all National Health Service trusts achieve baseline digital capability, and 95% of trusts will have implemented or upgraded their Electronic Patient Record system (EPR) by March 2026, with the remainder planning to implement after this.
Recent areas for focus have been EPR optimisation, working to improve functionality, efficiency and usability, and a new tiger team service in the Frontline Digitisation Support offer for 2025/26, which is available to provide trusts with rapid on-site support at critical points of their EPR journey. The team’s work will also inform practical guidance to help other trusts deploy successfully and realise the benefits of digitisation.
NHS England is continuing to conduct digital maturity assessments to support local systems and trusts to prioritise and plan local digital investment.
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
