Building Digital Skills and Leadership in Scotland

Scotland is equipping its health and care workforce with digital skills through a national framework, accessible training platforms and strong cross-sector collaboration. The strategy includes peer learning networks, digital champions and leadership programmes that empower staff to lead change. This inclusive, people-centred approach ensures digital transformation meets real workforce and citizen needs.

Key Points

• Scotland uses a national framework to boost digital skills across the health and social care sectors.
• Training resources are free, virtual and tailored to support a diverse, dispersed workforce.
• Peer learning and collaboration are central to Scotland’s digital leadership strategy.
• Digital Champions play a key role in supporting colleagues and promoting a culture of learning.
• Leadership programmes empower staff to drive digital change within their teams and organisations.

Emma Scatterty is the Digital Leadership Specialist Lead at NHS Education for Scotland, where she works to enhance digital capabilities within Scotland's health and social care workforce. As part of the Digitally Enabled Workforce team, she leads initiatives that promote digital leadership, encourage peer learning and provide accessible training resources. During the session “Looking Forwards: Skills for Scale” at the EHTEL 2024 Symposium (EHTEL 2024a, b), Scatterty shared insights on how Scotland prepares a future-ready workforce by focusing on people, collaboration and inclusive digital development. As a follow-up, HealthManagement.org interviewed Scatterty on further implications for Scotland's activities.

Q.: What are the key challenges Scotland’s Digital Capability Programme faces when finding and addressing the gaps in digital skills in health and social care, and how do you plan to overcome them?

A.: NHS Education for Scotland is the delivery partner commissioned by the Scottish Government and COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities) to deliver a programme of work aimed at growing the digital, data and leadership capabilities at all levels of our workforce across Scotland. Firstly, this is a hugely diverse workforce, encompassing health, social work, social care, housing and third- and independent sector staff with a range of skill needs according to sector, role and profession.

However, what we know about digital capabilities is that most skills are applicable across roles, and only a small percentage of specialist skills are role-specific. We have therefore designed a Digital and Data Capability Framework (NHS Education for Scotland 2025a) which outlines the digital skills, knowledge and behaviours that everyone needs to do their job and deliver safe and good-quality care and support. This is a key starting point for individuals to benchmark themselves across different capability areas. Once they understand the areas they would like to develop, they can access free, quality-assured training materials on our Digital and Data Resource Hub (NHS Education for Scotland 2025b) and Learner Pathways site (NHS Education for Scotland 2025f), which have been specially curated to support this large and varied workforce.

Q.: Collaboration is important in your approach. How do you work with different organisations in the sector to coordinate efforts and avoid repeating work in digital, data and leadership skills development?

A.: From the moment the Digital Capabilities Programme was founded, we have worked tirelessly to build relationships with organisations across the sector to not only understand the needs of the workforce but also to see where we can coordinate efforts. We conducted a critical piece of user research (NHS Education for Scotland 2025e) to discover existing levels of digital literacy across the sector, levels of access to digital devices and services, current issues in accessing digital learning platforms and, ultimately, how users want to learn. Twenty-eight interviews, two focus groups and over 3000 survey responses were analysed, revealing key themes such as a desire for outcomes-based training, the need to embed a digital learning culture in organisations and the importance of peer learning.

One of the key outputs from this research was the development of the Digital and Data Resource Hub (NHS Education for Scotland 2025b), a brilliant example of collaboration in action. It brings together a whole host of fantastic free resources already available and developed by others. Crucially, it makes these easy to find and relevant for users by mapping them against different capability areas and levels of competence.

Building networks has also been instrumental in our approach to encourage knowledge sharing. As one example, our KIND (knowledge, information and data workforce) network brings together approximately 3700 members working in these areas. It’s an engaged community which allows individuals and teams across the sector to collaborate, share learning and support each other to learn new skills. Over 2000 members are subscribed to the weekly email updates, and typically around 1000 members will join sessions run by the network each month, demonstrating that not only is membership high, but participation is too. Sessions include both structured training and informal events, shaped around the community's needs. Members also contribute daily to the chat thread, raising questions, providing support to others and sharing their weekly achievements, as well as celebrating those of others. We also run communities of practice for both Digital Leaders and Digital Champions.  

Q.: With health and social care workers spread out across different locations, how do you make sure that resources for digital skills development are accessible and engaging for all professionals, no matter where they are?

A.: Our team is known as the Digitally Enabled Workforce team, and we very much work in a way that is true to our vision. All of our resources and training programmes are delivered virtually, which for the most part means they are accessible at any time of day, from any location and from any device to support Scotland’s geographically dispersed workforce. Importantly, registration and access to our resources are open to anyone, the formats are varied to suit different learning styles, and many live events are recorded for wider sharing. However, we also recognise the importance of creating connections and meaningful collaborative experiences for learners, so we provide a plethora of opportunities for people across Scotland (and beyond!) to join interactive learning sessions and networks – from discussion forums to facilitated peer support groups, to technical training sessions to ‘Question & Answer’ sessions with subject matter experts. This approach also contributes to our wider goals of reducing duplication of efforts and getting people working together to bring about digital transformation across the sector.  

Q.: Can you share any success stories about how your work has positively impacted health and care delivery in Scotland?

A.: Our guiding principle is that all individuals can lead when given the opportunity and support, regardless of role or seniority. We are always inspired by what the participants of our digital leadership programmes achieve in terms of bringing about change in their own teams and organisations. Currently, our core Digital Health and Care Leadership Programme sees 240 aspiring leaders every year through a journey of identifying and delivering a digital improvement project, whilst building their skills, knowledge and networks along the way. You can read more about the projects on our site (NHS Education for Scotland 2025f). These range from improving citizen access to information, exploring telecare solutions that help people to stay independent at home for longer, making referrals to health services easier and more accessible, as well as projects focused on staff information, training and improving access to data and systems. Our mantra is people, processes and then technology. People are ultimately at the heart of delivering and receiving health and care services. So we put people first, making sure that we understand their role, learning needs and challenges, then design learning opportunities to address those needs and meet those challenges.

Q.: Can you explain the role of Digital Champions in health and social care and how they help create a culture of ongoing digital learning and change?

A.: In simple terms, a digital champion is someone willing to share their skills to help others use digital tools and technologies. We know that Digital Champions have a huge role in supporting the workforce to develop their digital skills – our user research (NHS Education for Scotland 2022) pointed to a strong desire for local support (complementing more structured training). We know this is most commonly delivered by digital champions, many of whom are not formally recognised or supported.

One of the reasons Digital Champions are so effective is that they are often trusted colleagues, which goes a long way in building people’s confidence and helping them adapt to new technologies and ways of working. Digital champions do not need to be technical experts; their strength lies in their ability to relate to and support others with patience and enthusiasm.

We are invested in getting Digital Champions the support, learning resources and recognition they need to carry out this crucial role. So, we’re currently working with people across the sector to help organisations build and grow their own digital champion networks. You can learn more about this work on our Digital Champion Networks site (NHS Education for Scotland 2025c).

Q.: Looking to the future, what do you see as the next big step in digital health and care in Scotland, and how are you going to help the workforce get ready for it?

A.: There is no doubt that the advancement of technology is moving exponentially; if we just take a moment to look at the way AI has developed over a relatively short period of time, it serves as a prime example.

However, we always stress that, whilst we do need to be horizon scanning and looking to the future to see what technology will help us solve both our current and future challenges, the key principles as to how we approach issues remain the same. In fact, we need to always start with our people, including staff, service users and all citizens, really understanding their needs, and then looking at the process improvements and technology that can really answer these issues.

Health and care are extremely complex, so no single piece of technology is going to be our panacea. It’s going to be about working collaboratively and openly, looking beyond our own teams, departments and organisations. We shall do it in a way that fosters skills growth, permission to test and innovate, and, crucially, an ability to pivot and adapt in an ever-changing world.

Yes, AI might be the next step, but this just makes it even more important that the fundamentals are in place, including clarity of roles and responsibilities, records management, information governance, visible leadership and accountability. If these are in place, this will support the greater collaborative working we need to be able to provide a truly integrated, supportive health and social care system.

Conflict of Interest

None