The Australian Federal Budget for 2026 has been published, with headline commitments to advance interoperability, promote data sharing, and improve access to healthcare services.
Among the measures to be outlined in the budget are plans to enhance the My Health Record with an injection of $598.3 million over two years, to ensure both patients and healthcare professionals are able to access reliable and “timely” health data. $79.2 million over three years is further set to go towards states and territories to support the implementation of national digital health reforms.
The government commits to providing $2 billion in funding for its Thriving Kids programme, including the development of a new National Digital Child Health Record making it easier to track and share information on children’s development.
More investment will be made in health research through the Medical Research Future Fund, with expectations for this to reach $1 billion per year by 2030-31. $71 million over three years will also go toward the Precision Oncology Screening Platform Enabling Clinical Trials programme offering cancer patients with poor prognosis access to genomic profiling to match them with clinical trials.
The Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH) took to LinkedIn to welcome news of digital health funding, particularly noting the investment of $13.3 million over two years for Sparked, a national FHIR accelerator programme designed to strengthen interoperability and consistency across the healthcare system.
“AIDH is reassured that the Government continues to value digital health programs and policies,” the Institute shares. “We will know more in the coming weeks when specific details are scrutinised, but we look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, and the Australian Digital Health Agency on the delivery of the government’s Digital Health blueprint.”
The Australian Digital Health Agency is also celebrating a milestone in the delivery of its National Healthcare Interoperability Plan, revealing that the finalisation of two actions in the latest reporting period mean 75 percent of planned actions have now been completed.
Peter O’Halloran, the agency’s chief digital officer, took to LinkedIn to share the news, noting that the remaining 11 action items are due to be completed by July 2028. “To everyone across the sector who has been involved in the delivery of these actions and to my colleagues in both the Council for Connected Care and the Agency, my heartfelt thanks for all of your hard-work and dedication,” he said. “That so much progress has been made over the last nearly three years since the launch of the Plan in July 2023 speaks volumes to the groundswell of support for digital health and to your professionalism.”
Wider trend: Funding for digital transformation
NHS England has published two pipeline notices indicating upcoming opportunities for digital delivery partners to support its urgent and emergency care agenda, and to provide DevOps services for NHS England Directorates. The first notice, which seeks a digital delivery partner to provide DevOps services into a variety of NHS Directorates, is expected to run from the end of September 2026 for a total of two years. The total value is anticipated to be £19million excluding VAT. The second notice outlines the intention to find a DevOps delivery partner to support the urgent and emergency care agenda across NHS Pathways, data, interoperability, and digital services like 111 online. Initially set to run from around August 2027 to August 2030, NHSE also suggests a two-year contract extension to August 2032 may be possible.
UK government-backed Sovereign AI has announced the launch of its new £500 million fund, designed to give early-stage AI companies in the UK access to the funds, compute, and strategic assets needed to scale rapidly and compete on a global scale. The announcement offered an insight into what was on offer for UK AI providers, such as access to AI supercomputers with up to one million GPU hours per startup, early-stage investment of up to £20 million, and strategic assets to support with the creation of AI datasets and autonomous lab infrastructure. £282 million is also being dedicated to support AI startups with research and development, with a funding call to be announced for the creation of new datasets and other assets.
Cheshire and Merseyside ICB has outlined a range of digital plans and priorities to 2031 in its five-year clinical and strategic commissioning plan, also incorporating system ambitions for population health improvement, and advising of a £29.6 million transformation fund for 2026-27. The ICB commits to a single multi-year digital investment model incorporating provider organisations, primary care, and wider system stakeholders as a single enterprise. Other plans include the delivery of digital tools to support clinical workflows, improve operational productivity and empower patients; the use of data-driven intelligence to inform clinical decisions and improve outcomes; embracing AI to “radically transform” how the system operates; and establishing a digital centre of excellence to coordinate innovation and horizon scanning.
