NHS England’s latest board meeting has offered an update on productivity, highlighting future opportunities, the need for increased spend and business change, and the potential for a different management approach to ownership of tech-derived benefits.
The board also puts forward its proposal to improve data transparency in line with a new priority programme of work within data and analytics, that will see league tables reported and the release of the NHS Acute Provider Table dashboard featuring monthly provider performance metrics.
The approach has been taken to “work openly by default”, opening access to aggregate clinical, operational and productivity benchmarking through the Model Health System, and allowing any individual with an NHS.net email address to access aggregate data, setting the foundation for cleaner integration to the Federated Data Platform. Five wider domains have been identified in relation to transparency, the board states, with more data to be shared with open APIs for third party use and development, sharing of data assets for research to be expedited, and improved data transparency with the independent sector supported.
On the past 18 months, the boards reflects sustained delivery over the two percent productivity target, including a 2.7 percent improvement in 2024/25, and a 2.6 percent improvement in acute hospital productivity for the first half of 2025/26. From 12 February, trust-level productivity growth statistics will be published on a monthly basis, NHSE continues, with the intent to improve the quality of data reported by trusts through regular scrutiny and feedback. For the current financial year, productivity efforts will be largely focused on “technical efficiencies” incorporating best practice clinical standards, and narrowing variation.
Looking ahead, the board notes that the kind of progressive productivity set out in the productivity plan “can only be achieved through large-scale transformation in NHS technology, backed by the additional funding allocated at the Spending Review settlement”. It also points to “significant allocative efficiencies” to be realised from the shift left, alongside prevention, and “radically reimagined” care models that harness new and emerging technologies.
Translating potential into actual is an area of historical underperformance, meaning that to enable productivity from tech and digital, decisions need to actively be taken to implement systems, realise benefits, and remove cumbersome systems and processes. “Tackling this challenge will require increased spend on implementation and business change, which will be facilitated by the Transformation SR settlement, but also – and just as critically – a different management approach to mainstream the ‘ownership’ of technology-derived benefits,” it says. “This latter part involves everything from implementing systems at the frontline and to ensuring they are well-used and duplicate analogue processes stripped out, through to adjusting regulations, operating guidance, the National Oversight Framework, or the NHS Payment Scheme to directly incentivise the use of technologies.”
Examples of tech driving productivity include the Wayfinder programme, which has exceeded its benefits for the year and is actively demonstrating “major reductions” in DNA rates; and the NHS App, where there is mounting evidence that enabling all core services results in around a three percent improvement in waiting lists. At Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, the use of the Dora AI clinical assistant capable of having routine clinical conversations with patients, is freeing-up clinical time and cutting waiting times, the board reports. Scaling this kind of implementation will rely on setting an ambitious vision through the Modern Service Frameworks and enforcing and incentivising use, it adds.
Also mentioned on the left shift is the impact of remote care on helping manage patients outside of hospital and reducing costly ambulance callouts or admissions. “Replicated across the country against the backdrop of an aging population we could see large savings which will also improve A&E performance and quality of care received by people who do need a hospital admission,” the board concludes. It also suggests that delivering outpatient follow-up activity using AI and remote monitoring could help reduce costs of this clinical activity by billions of pounds, that could be reinvested elsewhere.
Wider trend: National digital health transformation
NHS England has launched its Solution Exchange, a catalogue of digital tools, solutions, and resources, designed to help NHS organisations discover and adopt new technologies. Based in the Federated Data Platform (FDP), the catalogue is said to bring together proven tools and innovations with the aim of reducing duplication and accelerating the use of data-driven solutions. “NHS trusts and integrated care systems can browse the catalogue, deploy solutions directly into their local platform, or use the secure developer workspace to build and test new tools with sample data,” NHSE explains.
The UK Government has published its National Cancer Plan for England, backed by billions of pounds worth of investments in areas such as digital diagnostics, and informed by almost 12,000 responses to an earlier call for evidence from individuals and organisations. Through the call for evidence, 70 percent of respondents identified earlier cancer diagnosis as a priority for the new plan, with actions for timely referrals from primary care, increased symptom awareness, and improved cancer screening. 61 percent selected “improving access to and quality of cancer treatment”, recommending increased treatment capacity, reviewing and updating treatment and management guidelines to improve pathways, and expanding genomic testing. Feedback was also collected around patient experience, aftercare, reducing inequalities, research, and data, with considerations outlined such as to speed up the adoption of new technologies.
NHS England has shared the latest updates on its NHS App Roadmap, including recently completed pilots, current areas of focus, and plans for future development. The roadmap notes a list of NHS App integrated live partners and services, including providers such as Accurx and Anima Health for online consultations, Patients Know Best for personal health records, and DrDoctor and Health Call for secondary care. On appointments, the roadmap details a recent pilot seeing patients on a patient-initiated follow-up (PIFU) pathway requesting follow-up appointments via the app, and work to improve main GP appointment booking by implementing the latest design standards. Current focus is on expanding the PIFU pathway to more patients, and improving how waiting list data is communicated. Next steps will be improving the experience of patients waiting for treatment and extending secondary care appointment management to those managing health services for others.
