ICB Region Series: London
Welcome to the latest instalment of our region series for 2026, where we take a deep dive into what’s happening with digital and data across the London region. We’ll explore pilots and innovations, strategies, case studies, and insights from the sector.
Digital strategy, digital plans and priorities
Neighbourhood health in North West London: Data sharing, accelerating spread, move from reactive to proactive care
North West London ICB has defined next steps and key priorities to accelerate neighbourhood health across the region, with a focus on agreements for data sharing, accelerating the spread of proven care models, and driving the move from reactive to proactive care. There are seven place partnerships in NWL: Brent, Harrow, Hillingdon, Bi-borough, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow, and Ealing. All seven now have place managing directors in post, and the ICB reports that six have submitted applications for the neighbourhood health implementation programme. A joint ICB and community collaborative programme office has been established, and approval has been received for the Better Care Fund, with £5 million in efficiency savings achieved “aligned to neighbourhood health”.
On digital and data, a neighbourhood health dashboard has been launched to help staff identify high-risk groups, with work ongoing to increase its uptake and use. Data sharing agreements are in place across all seven place partnerships, and population health management training academy modules have been developed to promote analytical capability and skills for data-driven decision making. The ICB plans to develop a risk stratification approach, expand the use of existing tools for record sharing, the Universal Care Plan and One London, and increased the number of residents supported through the LTC digital platform.
Other key digital and data focuses cover increasing digital adoption to enable residents to self-manage through the NHS App and My Health London. By March 2027, the ICB aims for the Federated Data Platform to enable real-time data to strengthen neighbourhood-based care, NWL says, whilst a commissioning framework will be implemented “following clarity of national contractual models for neighbourhoods”.
West and North London ICB shares strategy development and plans for digital following merger
West and North London ICB has shared its strategy development, covering plans for digital-first and community pathways, digital infrastructure, interoperability and real-time data, and integrated teams. A joint ICT merger delivery group has been established across the two ICBs, and is said to already be making “positive progress” through December and January. Aims are to enable the sharing of files seamlessly across the ICBs, enabling collaborative work on projects, and forming a single email domain. The team will be working to enable all staff to work from any location across the two sites, and to “run future IT procurement strategically, with a view to standardising contracts as and when the existing contracts expire”. Both ICBs are now reported to be undertaking the Data Security Protection Toolkit process early, to ensure data security.
The ICB plans to develop its digital infrastructure through a focus on improving interoperability, real-time information sharing, analytics and population health capabilities with the integration of a wide range of data sources, and an investment in analytics skills for non-analysts to promote data-driven decision making across the system. In tackling fragmented systems and poor interoperability, which it notes can limit information sharing and integrated working, the ICB makes a commitment to investing in interoperable systems, real-time analytics, and population health capability, aligned to the London Secure Data Environment.
Three critical steps are outlined within the ICB’s approach: work to understand risk in communities and to take a proactive and preventative approach to designing services; prioritising population cohorts with “high utilisation but poor outcomes or poor value”; and using a “should-cost” analysis to model what a pathway “should-cost” if it were designed around best practice, digital triage, and optimised flows. Underpinning these steps are two enablers, the ICB continues, including digital infrastructure for triage, risk stratification, and information sharing between providers; and patient activation, to support patients in engaging on their own health and self-management.
South West London ICB details infrastructure strategy and EPR roadmap
South West London ICB has highlighted progress made on its infrastructure strategy, along with next steps for 2026 – 2029. The ICB notes short, medium and long term plans against the National Cyber Assurance Framework to improve cyber security maturity and resilience, as well as the launch of four digital infrastructure working groups on service management, end user device and software licensing, cloud adoption, and network harmonisation.
Where SWL set out to explore the convergence of EPRs and procurement strategy, it notes the completion of an EPR roadmap and a “clear need justification for an ICS-wide approach to EPR”, linked to national policy and the ICS strategy. Here, the ICB highlights discussions between local partners on aligning contract end dates and exploring potential collaborative opportunities.
Looking ahead, the ICB shares its approach to planning investments on a long-term basis, delivering data-driven decisions to prioritise investments and programmes, and undertaking continued horizon scanning for funding to support ambitions across estates, digital, and net zero. It similarly outlines its intent to respond to changing clinical models, and a commitment to using digital technologies “where relevant”. Support will be delivered for staff to develop leadership, capacity, and capability to deliver, SWL states, with success to be measured through KPI, dashboard reporting, and programme reporting.
South West London ICB shares cyber assurance position and overview of system-wide cyber improvement activities
South West London ICB has shared an update on its current cyber assurance and details of system-wide cyber improvement activities, extending to progress around governance and promoting alignment with provider organisations. The update follows news that the ICB’s digital team has secured more than £1 million in funding from NHS England to support its delivery of the SWL Cyber Strategy.
The ICB’s latest Cyber Security Strategy set out six objectives to be achieved by 2030: strengthening governance, managing risk, understanding critical systems and suppliers, prevention and resilience, detecting and responding to threats and incidents, and embedding cyber awareness and culture. Martin Ellis, the ICB’s CDIO, emphasised that as the system’s digital transformation progresses, “security must be embedded in everything we do”. He added: “This strategy ensures that our digital initiatives are built on a strong and consistent foundation of cyber security, safeguarding patient data, critical systems, and the trust our communities place in us.”
Insights from the London region
Best practices in building workforce digital literacy and skills
Shanker Vijayadeva, GP lead – digital transformation in primary care for the London Region at NHS England joined us for a webinar focusing on best practices in building workforce digital literacy and skills. “Digital literacy could mean absolutely anything, to anyone, and the biggest thing is how we define it,” Shanker considered. “And then, even if we can define it, the chances are it is going to constantly change.” The key thing is speaking to staff and finding out what it means for them, he went on, which is likely to vary by role and the range of things they need to do with software or IT systems. “We also need to consider patients – if we’re thinking on one level and patients are thinking on another, we may not be able to communicate, in the same way as with language literacy. Also, we should reflect on the diversity of our staff population, what our starting point is, and how we can co-design what digital literacy looks like.
“I’m a great believer that if you’re a leader, no matter how high up you are, you’ve got to be connected to the actual product and to your users,” Shanker told us. “You’ve got to experience what they’re experiencing, rather than being in an ivory tower – you might have seen the demo, but try it, test it, don’t expect your staff to do anything you wouldn’t be prepared to do yourself. If we want to take our users on that journey, we’ve got to stand up to the challenge of fighting the system higher up, because often problems are attributed to users, and you’re going to have to fight to get those development requests and that improvement.”
Making progress on interoperability
Ananya Datta, associate director of primary care digital delivery at South East London ICB shared insights as part of a panel discussion on interoperability and key steps towards making progress, noting: “One of the biggest challenges that we face is interoperability with the clinical system itself. I think the majority of practices and PCNs use software that may not be interoperable across different care settings, which is a problem.” In terms of her own organisation, Ananya explained, “Last year we did an evaluation with primary care and secondary stakeholders, as well as some of the community pharmacists. Almost 145 individuals participated to help us understand how we could improve interoperability. And we learned quite a lot of things from them in terms of where they’re struggling as care providers and also how the population is struggling. One of the main things that came up was around patients not having visibility of their own data through technology, such as the NHS App.”
Ananya spoke about the potential developments on a national scale that could help make progress, stating, “In the future we should be looking to standardise elements in primary care that are already in place on a national level. For example, increasing the usage of GP Connect, not only to view the patient record but to also share information in different care settings.” Referencing her own organisation, she said, “Our community pharmacy can now send consultation notes back to the GP and it goes straight into the EPR system. So, that’s already quite a huge improvement.”
AI approaches, safety, policy, regulation, and evaluation
Matea Deliu, GP clinical lead and clinical lead for primary care digital delivery at South East London ICB joined our panel for a webinar exploring AI approaches, safety, policy, regulation, and evaluation. Matea spoke about some of the recent AI projects that are taking place across South East London ICB, starting with the use of Microsoft Copilot. “We are one of the first pilot sites for NHS England to really try and evaluate whether Copilot is useful for clinicians and non-clinicians. We already knew about Copilot through Microsoft Word and Excel, using it in the back office, but we were tasked with seeing if there was a use for it in primary care as well.” Matea went on to explain what this meant for the ICB, adding, “we put a call out and allocated a certain number of licences per practice, and started to help to organise training sessions. We’re still currently in the process of gathering feedback from our practices. I’d say probably by next year we should have a little bit more information, but overall it has been quite positive.”
She then touched on the ICB’s plans around implementing ambient AI. “About 70 percent of our practices are now using ambient AI,” she said. “The challenge has been that some practices don’t really know how to evaluate this type of tool or which tools have gone through the right regulations.” Because of this, Matea shared that many practices “didn’t really know which tool was the best one to use and clinical safety was often in the back of everyone’s mind because of a lack of clinical safety officers”. As such, the ICB is trying to look at ways to help with clinical safety, with Matea adding, “we’re looking at ways of using other tools to help enable practices to generate their own DCB0160 as part of implementing ambient AI.”
One final AI project Matea wanted to share was the use of AI triage and intelligent navigation, part of an NHS England initiative where the ICB is piloting the NHS App as a platform to improve the patient experience. This includes allowing patients to input their symptoms into the NHS App, with the AI triage tool using all the relevant data it already has to “signpost or navigate the patient to the right place at the right time, with the right type of clinician, not just your GP but more under-utilised community services like Pharmacy First too”.
Ambient scribe technology in primary care
Shanker Vijayadeva, GP lead – digital transformation in primary care for the London Region at NHS England joined us for a HTN Now session taking a deep dive into ambient scribe technology in primary care. Shanker highlighted some of the confusing elements that are involved with implementation, particularly when it comes to guidelines, noting how GPs often have to stop and wonder what their ICB thinks, what a DCB0160 is, or what exactly they’re supposed to do with the tech. “And that can then slow them down,” Shanker said. “That is probably the biggest challenge. But there are quite a few different products on the marketplace too, so knowing how to distinguish between them is a challenge in itself.”
Shanker observed how the growth in AI ambient technology has actually helped to increase awareness around important compliance and safety standards such as the DCB0160, stating: “I think it has drawn attention to it as something that we really should have been doing from the beginning”. Emphasising this, he mentioned: “At one point, no one knew what a clinical safety officer was or who it should be. And now when you do look at who should be responsible for the DCB0160, you’re faced with capacity issues.”
Restore Information Management on tackling the shift to digital, future-proofing information strategy, and realising the benefits of digitisation
We caught up with Simon McNair, head of business development at Restore Information Management, who shared insights from his work helping NHS organisations to tackle challenges around managing legacy records and making the transition to digital. “We particularly look to offer support in using technology to extract better value from the data held by NHS organisations, which can be critical to clinical decision-making,” he explained. “Also, with the shift to prevention, through access to the data, particularly as it’s being centralised around the Single Patient Record and national document repositories.”
Reflecting on the change happening within the healthcare sector at the moment, Simon talked about the “clear direction” set out within the 10-Year Plan from analogue to digital, structural changes being made to how funding is distributed, and the more complex landscape for ICBs in terms of delivering care to patients. Recent progress on digitisation doesn’t detract from the fact that some of the processes involving paper records that it is replacing have been in place for decades, he considered, “and I think the challenge is in that transition from a paper way of working to a digital way of working, benefitting from the technology and platforms now available offering better communication, better visibility, and better ways for patients to manage their care”.
For ICBs, the key is “understanding what you have, minimising your holding in terms of records and data in line with retention programmes, and then enabling clinicians to access the information they need efficiently to improve patient care,” Simon told us. “It’s also about a level of system or centralised support, for example going out to practices to support with information management, compliance, and so on.” There has been significant investment at national and regional level in technology that can help NHS organisations particularly in the primary care space to operate more efficiently, he continued, “a good example would be the National Document Repository, which has created a central database for GP and primary care records that the whole network can access”.
Effective ICB estates strategy
Central considerations for ICBs looking to develop estates strategies include consistent funding, gaining an understanding of real estate footprint and the costs associated with current records management practices, and exploring how digitisation could reduce that burden. “The byproduct of that is reducing operating costs,” said Simon, “or reusing and repurposing real estate in a more efficient way”. Progress on frontline digitisation, ensuring every organisation has an EPR, and the subsequent availability of data to improve patient outcomes has meant not only less paper records, but also more compliance, and better access to data when it’s needed, in the format it is needed, for clinicians.
“For NHS organisations that may have offsite warehouses and different medical records stores, coming out of those sites offers a reduction in ongoing operational cost, because you’re no longer paying the rent, the rates, etc.,” Simon considered. “We know the NHS is operating under huge space constraints, so if there’s a chance to repurpose the records room in a GP surgery into another consulting room, for example, there’s benefit there, which is multiplied up again if you look at that at a large trust.”
Future-proofing information strategies and moving toward a hybrid model
It’s becoming increasingly important to future-proof information strategies to make room for emerging technologies like AI, Simon noted, and the opportunities they may offer to increase productivity and patient choice. “It’s about using technology in a way that allows for more effective information management,” he said, “particularly where that information is hybrid – how do you apply automated retention processes, how do you manage requests to access that information, and how can you surface what you need quickly and easily?” Used properly, technologies such as AI can help improve retention practices and compliance, reduce administrative burden, free-up both clinical and operational time, and extract greater value from data, he added.
“Whether records and information are in paper or digital format, the key piece is having a really effective policy in place that is deployed consistently across the organisation,” Simon told us. “At a foundation level, it’s about having a robust approach to managing information, information governance, and programmes around compliance.” He suggested designating information asset owners, and ensuring clear cybersecurity protocols are in place, whether information is being managed or held within the NHS or with the involvement of third parties.
Best practices and key considerations
Moving on to think about what ICBs should consider when shaping their information strategies, Simon highlighted that there remains “quite a bit of work to be done” on addressing core foundations of how physical and digital records are managed. “In a significant number of projects we’ve done across both primary and secondary care involving large-scale uplifts of records, digitisation on demand based on patient need or patient appointment, as opposed to trying to just digitise everything, has worked more effectively,” he shared. “Having a clear plan and a roadmap, with funding in place, has led to greater success, in our experience, and having a single system to manage the patient record, along with a single view of the patient record, is a good starting point.”
For Restore Information Management, it’s about getting organisations to a point where they have minimised their records holding, are digitising based on an intelligent view of what’s required by clinicians, and making sure that’s accessible on platforms and systems in use across the NHS, Simon explained. “Our role, and where that’s worked well, is where those programmes are funded and very joined-up, because it’s part of a much bigger transformation programme – the part that we do often enables some of the effective investments in systems and a single view on the patient record, and those major EPR investments that the NHS has made.”
Talking about the positive direction set out by the 10-Year Plan, Simon considered how Restore Information Management is well positioned to offer at-scale, secure, and experienced guidance. “We can bring our expertise to focus on a task that the NHS essentially doesn’t have the bandwidth or the resources to do itself,” he said. “When it comes to the aims of the 10-Year Plan, and particularly moving from analogue to digital and getting a single view of the patient record, we can help tackle what is still an enormous challenge, despite sizeable process being made over the last three years or so.”
These challenges are already being addressed in practice. A recent programme delivered with NHS Birmingham & Solihull Integrated Care Board shows how a system wide approach to information management can support the transition from paper to digital at scale. By securely digitising over one million patient records across 160 GP practices, the ICB was able to improve access to information, strengthen governance, and support more joined up care across the system.
Health tech innovation across the London region
South East London ICB set to award £3.5 million in virtual wards contracts
South East London ICB shared its intention to award virtual wards contracts with a value of £3.5 million to Doccla UK and Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, spanning services across NHS@Home and Virtual Plus Health Monitoring. One part of the contract, worth £2.25 million, is to fund Lewisham and Greenwich for an NHS@Home Virtual Ward for Lewisham, with core functions including the provision of step-up care as an option for when patients become acutely unwell, and step-down care to facilitate earlier discharge or transfer from an inpatient ward. Also part of the contract, valued at £1.3 million, intends to be awarded to Doccla UK for remote monitoring, with an initial focus on COPD and asthma. This will involve the use of digital tools in tracking vital signs, and for monitoring symptoms and medication adherence, ready to be reviewed by a multidisciplinary team.
North Central London ICB to award £400k contract extension for online counselling and digital support for children and young people
North Central London ICB has shared its intention to award a contract worth £405k to Kooth Digital Health Limited, for the supply of an early intervention online counselling and digital support service for children and young people aged 11-25. The two-year contract is set to run until 31 March 2028, and includes the provision of a safe online platform with drop-in and booked 1:1 text-based counselling services available Monday to Friday 12:00 – 22:00, and weekends 18:00 – 22:00. Moderated forums and self-help content will also be included in the service, along with signposting and step-up/step-down pathways to local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
North West London and North Central London ICBs look to procure £3.8m end-to-end digital solution
North West London and North Central London ICBs have issued a preliminary market engagement notice outlining an intent to procure an end-to-end digital solution for complex care clinical commissioning across the merged West and North London ICB. With a budget up to £3.8 million, the solution will aim to replace outdated systems across both organisations, promoting resilience within the complex care service, reducing unwarranted variation, improving data accuracy and visibility, and introducing workflows and automation. According to the ICB, the solution will also support the transition to a new operating model and “transformational” ways of working, empowering users with dedicated portals to support user experience.
