One of the headline announcements of the King’s Speech has been the NHS Modernisation Bill, which sets out plans to abolish NHS England, strip back national bureaucracy, drive forward the Single Patient Record, and streamline patient safety.
The Bill also notes restructuring of ICBs and the need to clarify the roles of arm’s length bodies, opportunities to look deeper into patient experience, information siloes and a lack of joined-up care records across the health sector, and challenges around the use of different EPR systems.
The Single Patient Record will enable the NHS to combine data from patient health and social care records in one place to improve safety and experience, it states, allowing individuals to access their health records securely and to make informed decisions about their own health. “This will apply to those receiving maternity and frailty care by 2028, with learning from this applied to the wider rollout,” the government explains.
Also of note are measures introduced in the Regulating for Growth Bill, which recognises the need to modernise regulation to support growth and innovation. It points to the potential for “rapid but controlled” testing of AI through regulatory sandboxes, with legal powers allowing rules to be temporarily relaxed to test new products and technologies in real-world settings.
“The intention is to enable controlled, live–market trials where existing laws can be modified or suspended to allow experimentation in relation to technologies such as medicines, autonomous maritime and defence technology, AI and other fast–growing technologies,” it explains. “This enables ideas that are proven in testing to be deployed at pace and scale, driving productivity and economic growth but also unlocking wider benefits for society.”
Suggestions for the impact this may have are given as enabling the controlled testing of innovative medical devices like AI, and improving patient access to new treatments and technologies. “In healthcare, nearly 750,000 patient imaging cases were not reported within four weeks over the past year, a 31 per cent increase year-on-year, driven by a mismatch between demand and workforce growth,” it continues. “…Research indicates that AI could materially improve capacity and productivity, with AI performing better than 78-90 per cent of radiologists on certain prediction tasks.”
Wider trend: NHS transformation, innovation, and reform
At the Institute for Government’s annual conference in January, Wes Streeting delivered a keynote speech on NHS reform, noting “modernisation can’t be dodged any longer”, setting out an approach to modernisation focused on empowering people, offering freedom to the frontline, shifting to prevention, using tech to support productivity, and spending taxpayers’ money with care. On freedoms for the frontline, Streeting said: “Centralisation has infantilised NHS leaders and stifled the frontline….We’re stripping out layers of bureaucracy, trusting professionals, and giving teams the tools to drive self-improvement and better outcomes. Roles, resources, and responsibilities are being devolved to the frontline.” He also looked at the importance of partnering with industry and the voluntary sector to help drive innovation toward the prevention agenda.
The Department of Health and Social Care has published an impact statement noting the rationale behind many of the key measures introduced in the 10-Year Plan, covering potential impact, costs, benefits, and risks. The single patient record will take several years, and costs will include product development, tech and data integration, delivery, implementation, and commercial costs, it states. When it comes to AI, the adoption and scaling of new tech will mean upfront costs and funding. The DHSC shares that the government is backing three UK research projects by investing £37.5 million in a Research Ventures Catalyst programme looking at how AI can target hard-to-treat diseases and improve diagnosis and treatment. Risks include slow uptake and implementation delays due to upfront costs. Patients could benefit from increased face-to-face time with clinicians, the DHSC states, which is supported by data emerging from NHS-funded pilots with areas such as Ambient AI.
The UK government has published its roadmap for modern digital government, an action plan bringing together integral products, platforms, and transformation initiatives to demonstrate how digitalisation across the government is improving public services, increasing accessibility, and promoting value for money. The roadmap aims to deliver on five themes: easier lives, faster growth, firmer foundations, smarter organisations, and higher productivity and efficiency, with progress being tracked through activity levels, delivery of projects and commitments, and outcomes such as user satisfaction. “We’ve identified an opportunity of £45 billion in potential savings and productivity benefits for the whole public sector,” the government states. “We’ll start by measuring central government departments’ contributions to this by tracking the digital efficiencies they’ve identified by the end of the spending review period.”
