The government has published its plans to transform the NHS and deliver a digital first service. Highland Marketing’s influential advisors and market-leading clients welcome the vision: but argue funding, detailed strategies, and service transformation will be needed to deliver it.
The government has published its 10 Year Health Plan for the NHS. As expected, it calls for a shift from hospital to community, treatment to prevention, and analogue to digital.
When it comes to that third shift, the plan makes some ambitious calls on a single digital care record, an expanded NHS App, and the potential of AI in everything from clinical decision support to reducing the burden of administration to guiding patients around the health service.
Highland Marketing’s advisors and clients are excited about this new vision for a digitally fronted, digitally driven NHS. However, they caution that funding, detailed strategies, attention to the basics of infrastructure and standards will be needed to deliver it.
There will also need to be a focus on system reform in key areas, such as diagnostics, building on developments such as the roll-out of pathology and imaging networks and the creation of community diagnostic centres over recent years. Read their views here:
Jeremy Nettle, chair of the Highland Marketing advisory board said: “There are some similarities between the 10 Year Health Plan and the strategies drawn up during the Blair administration, which is not too surprising given that some of their architects are back at the Department of Health and Social Care.
“However, this plan will have to be delivered in very different circumstances, with much tighter finances and higher demand. In this context, moving money from secondary care to primary care and – hopefully, mental health – is positive but a high-risk strategy, if it means the acute sector struggles to deliver its targets and creaking infrastructure continues to frustrate staff and patients.
“The government’s commitment to moving from an analogue to a digital service is welcome, but that creaking IT infrastructure and long-standing issues with interoperability will need to be addressed if it really wants AI-powered workflows and to modernise the NHS App.
“The public may also be expecting more rapid improvements than current roadmaps envisage. For example, the 10 Year Health Plan talks about agentic AI assisting for both clinicians and patients. Yet as things stand, there isn’t even two-way communication through the app.
“The plan has huge ambitions for a prevention first, neighbourhood first, and digital first service, but as with the plans from the 2000s, the issue is whether its vision can be realised. I hope we’ll see some detailed, funded, and realistic strategies for delivery, now it has finally been published.”
Alan Fowles, Global President at St. Vincent’s Consulting, said: “The plan’s commitment to shift from reactive to preventative care, and from fragmented to integrated services, reflects the complex demands facing both the NHS and social services.
“Turning that ambition into reality requires more than funding or technology alone; it demands trust, collaboration, and a redefinition of what “good” looks like. It also requires a clear understanding of where funding will come from and a procurement process that operates efficiently and effectively.
“We now have a valuable opportunity to move beyond legacy thinking and focus on how digital tools can support the delivery of coordinated, inclusive, and efficient care, tailored to the most appropriate setting. This shift is less about individual tools and more about cultivating the conditions for innovation to thrive, where data flows securely, people are empowered, systems are responsive to real needs, and patients understand both their expected outcomes and their role in maintaining personal wellbeing.”
Dr Mark Ratnarajah, UK managing director for C2-Ai, said: “The 10 Year Health Plan must deliver urgent, measurable impact in the short term – not just long-term ambition. In support, the £10 billion budget for NHS IT and transformation that was announced in the spending review must go beyond national apps and records to support evidence-driven, anticipatory, and localised health and care models.
“A rapid focus on elective recovery means more than clearing backlogs; it means identifying at-risk patients early to avoid deterioration and costly escalation.
“Technology can already stratify patient risk and support targeted community interventions that reduce emergency admissions and complications. National blueprints for using this technology exist and scaling such proven models must be a top priority.
“Prevention must also become reality. That means predictive, anticipatory care backed by real-time data and citizen empowerment. Giving patients access to personalised insights and making clear their responsibilities, where appropriate, will strengthen health and could reduce avoidable demand.
“As trusts are given new powers – but also held accountable and potentially paid, in part, on ratings – they must be given the tools to compare apples with apples – and to measure the quality of care based on observed outcomes as an evidence base, not just opinion.
“Merging integrated care boards also urgently need digital tools to map localised determinants of health and structure services effectively. And in maternity care – often the barometer of the NHS – data must be used proactively to enable openness, actionable learning and, crucially, to detect and resolve systemic issues before they become scandals.
“Data-driven safety tools can spot early signals of system-level and individualised risk before harm occurs. Safe, equitable care for mothers and babies is essential.
“The NHS must become a learning institution. A culture of real-time insight and continuous improvement can lead to safer, more efficient care. It is already happening to great effect in some of the world’s top performing health systems. If embraced now, these shifts won’t just keep the NHS afloat – they could secure a sustainable future. Health tech isn’t just a cost – it is a catalyst for empowering what is needed.”
Jane Rendall, UK and Ireland managing director for Sectra, said: “Digital, community shift, prevention, waiting lists, and narrowing healthcare inequalities: they’re all headline items in the 10 Year Health Plan. Each policy requires diagnostic services – so an expansion of already widespread, digitally-enabled reform could make a significant difference to realising the NHS’ ambitions.
“Before the plan was launched, health and social care secretary Wes Streeting promised £2.2 billion to tackle healthcare inequity; but we need more than money to improve access to tests and scans for populations most-in-need.
“Expansion of community diagnostic centres will provide people with more choice on where to have their scan. But diagnosticians – radiologists and pathologists – must be able to report from anywhere to level the playing field on access to expertise, enable timely diagnosis and treatment, and support prevention.
“We’ve already seen substantial growth in imaging networks, which share scarce expertise across trust boundaries. More boundaries might now break down – even leading to cross-regional models in which specialists can review and report on imaging acquired nationally.
“New thinking – such as virtual diagnostics – could better serve deprived and vulnerable communities and deliver on many of the goals in the plan. This must be supported by mechanisms to bring in the latest technologies at pace and safely – including AI.
“Trusts have limited resource, and tools must be made available to them to efficiently adopt and consume the AI that will help them serve their populations the best. Combined, this presents an opportunity to harness scale, reduce waste, and deliver fairness where it matters most.”
Chris Goldie, CEO, Vertex in Healthcare, said: “Embracing new technology as a means to ensure the stability and sustainability of NHS services is a positive focus in the 10 Year Health Plan. The shift from analogue to digital must also encompass re-invention of some of the existing digital systems heavily relied on in the health service.
“Productivity expectations on healthcare professionals to do more with patients can only be met if the IT systems they use allow them to stop doing other things that consume time. In radiology, an area critical to the plan, royal colleges continue to point to sizeable efforts being spent on administration and on imaging teams dealing with unresponsive technology.
“Put simply, we can’t expect clinical teams to perform miracles with outdated technology. A procurement shake-up is essential to allow new entrants to provide innovation where it has been lacking, and to design IT systems specifically for the modern needs of teams under pressure.
“Technologies must also be expected to integrate within and beyond hospital walls. We have a collective responsibility to create the technological environment for the plan, and the people central to that plan, to succeed.”
