Digital Health and Care Reform Will Fail Without Councils, Warns LGA
The Local Government Association (LGA) is calling for councils to be made equal partners with the NHS to prevent digital reform in health and social care from failing.
A new report from the LGA and PPL, highlights the crucial role councils play in delivering joined-up digital services across health and care as part of the 10-Year Health Plan for England.
The LGA says councils need support and recognition to redesign services, build digital leadership, improve data use and strengthen partnerships with health and care providers. Digital and data integration will only succeed if it is embedded in service redesign and neighbourhood health, rather than a standalone technology agenda.
Current misalignment between investment and benefit across health and care limits the pace and scale of digital reform, particularly where councils face constrained resources. Local government often bears the costs of digital integration, while the benefits are realised elsewhere in the system. Councils fund tech-enabled care, care coordination and early intervention, but NHS services benefit from the resulting reduction in hospital demand.
The success of digital reform will require national policy and funding to better reflect the realities of health prevention, integration and neighbourhood health models which benefit the wider health and care system.
The report finds that data sharing and interoperability are the biggest practical barriers to digital and data reform. The LGA warns that current approaches to reform remain fragmented and are too often focused on technology rather than whole-place outcomes designed around people. In adult social care and home care markets, shared national standards and coordinated information flows are needed instead of the isolated digitisation of individual providers.
As trusted local partners, councils are central to tackling digital exclusion by ensuring local people can access services in ways that meet their needs. As health and care services become increasingly digitised, inclusion, accessibility and public trust must be treated as essential, not secondary considerations.
The LGA says that if government wants neighbourhood health, prevention, and community-based care to become a reality, it must do more to create the conditions for success at a local level. It is calling for the Government to:
• Make neighbourhood health the guiding principle behind digital and data integration.
• Set national standards for data sharing, interoperability and ownership.
• Recognise councils and social care as equal partners in digital reform, not just add-ons to the NHS.
• Publish clear guidance on AI governance covering safe, proportionate and evidence-based use.
• Strengthen digital leadership, workforce capability and governance in local government.
• Recognise the role of local government in digital inclusion and equitable access to digital health and care services.
Cllr Dr Wendy Taylor MBE, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Health and Wellbeing Committee, said: ”Digital and data integration in health and care can help deliver more joined up, preventative and responsive services for the people who draw on care and support, but only if local government is treated as an equal partner.
“If government wants neighbourhood health to succeed, local government must be positioned at the centre of digital reform rather than as a supporting actor to NHS digital reform. Without councils, digital health reform will fail.
“Councils often shoulder the costs of integration, but the benefits are felt elsewhere. With national standards, better data sharing and support for local service redesign, councils can help deliver the joined-up services people need.
“We’re ready to work with government and NHS partners to ensure the aims of the 10-year Health Plan and Health Bill are realised.”
