Its responsibilities are intended to include:

• setting national policy and developing best practice for NHS technology, digital and data – including data-sharing and transparency;
• setting standards – developing, agreeing and mandating clear standards for the use of technology in the NHS;
• ensuring that NHS systems can talk to each other across the health and care system;
• helping to improve clinical care by delivering agile, user-focused projects;
• supporting the use of new technologies by the NHS, both by working with industry and via its own prototyping and development capability;
• ensuring that common technologies and services, including the NHS App, are designed so that trusts and surgeries don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time;
• making sure that all source code is open by default so that anyone who wants to write code for the NHS can see what we need;
• reforming procurement – helping the NHS buy the right technology through the application of technology standards, streamlined spend controls and new procurement frameworks that support our standards;
• setting national strategy and mandating cyber security standards, so that NHS and social care systems have security designed in from the start;
• championing and developing digital training, skills and culture so our staff are digital-ready; and
• delivering an efficient process for technology spend, domain name management and website security.