The newly-created Central East ICB, formed from Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB, and Hertfordshire, has revealed its five-year approach from strategy to delivery, highlighting the role of digital and data in achieving objectives and improving outcomes for the local population.
Committing to adopting modern, digital mechanisms such as the NHS App by default, and to supporting its population in safely managing their own health with digital access and remote monitoring, the ICB sets out ‘five layers’: prevention and screening, supported self-care, proactive outreach and risk mitigation, care coordination for complex needs, and crisis response and recovery.
The ICB places an emphasis on digital access tools like online entry points, remote monitoring, and AI-enabled triage, to reduce friction for patients and remove “avoidable volume” to ensure clinical time can be focused on those who need it most. “By operating proactively, coordinating care across settings, and using digital tools intelligently, the model aims to reduce unwarranted variation and avoidable utilisation, increase access and satisfaction, and deliver more consistent outcomes,” Central East states. “It provides a common framework for commissioning, delivery, and assurance—ensuring that every pathway contributes to a sustainable, high-quality system of care.”
At the outset, focus will be on a small number of priority disease areas and groups of care where the need is greatest, according to the ICB, with those pathways to act as “early exemplars” for the way the system applies proactive, coordinated, and digitally-enabled care. There will be five pathways initially: cancer, musculoskeletal conditions, cardiovascular disease, advanced illness, and mental health crisis care.
On re-procurement and service redesign, the ICB shares plans to re-procure diabetes and dermatology services in 2026/27 on a whole-pathway basis, emphasising prevention and supported self-management, and enabling digital access, triage, and advice models to improve flow and experience. From 2027 onwards, it notes ambitions to begin commissioning neighbourhood health teams, and to prioritise contracts looking to increase access, manage deterioration proactively, coordinate care, and support people at home or in the community.
The ICB also makes a number of commitments around data, stating “high quality, timely data will be non-negotiable”. Contracts will set out expectations for data sharing and quality, it continues, and rather than being considered “an administrative add-on”, data will form a core enabler of improvement and accountability work. Over the next three years, the system’s data approach will look to build a single, shared foundation to support better decision-making, with the aim of having a unified view of data to help understand need, target interventions, and track outcomes. Data and analytics will be brought together under one integrated platform, it states, and further work will be done on improving interoperability, data quality, governance, and standardisation.
Wider trend: System-wide planning and strategy
NHS England has issued guidance for regions and ICBs setting out practical planning instructions for developing neighbourhood health centres, highlighting the role of digital in connectivity, integration, and enablement. “Digital capability is fundamental to the functioning of neighbourhood health services,” NHSE shares. “Neighbourhood health centres must therefore be planned as digitally enabled facilities, in line with the approach set out in the neighbourhood health centres design specification. Costings for proposed schemes should reflect this.” ICBs and regions are encouraged to look at the interaction between their physical estate and digital transformation as part of the planning process, with key factors including the possibility of a reduction in space requirements due to modern general practice models, and requirements for the neighbourhood workforce to have access to shared digital systems.
The Derby & Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, and Nottingham & Nottinghamshire ICB cluster has published a five-year strategic commissioning and population health improvement plan, detailing the role of digital in supporting system ambitions to 2031. DLN notes a “decisive shift” from traditional commissioning to a “should cost/should deliver” model with focuses on the three shifts toward prevention, care closer to home, and digital. High-level focuses include the provision of remote monitoring and virtual care options, the use of population health data to target support, joined-up information across partners to support care, and modern digital access routes such as the NHS App. Digital and data systems and approaches will be modernised, it continues, and headline deliverables cover the shared care record, NHS App, Federated Data Platform, and AI and automation.
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB’s Digital Inclusion Delivery Framework has outlined a “bold and unified vision” for tackling digital inclusion, based around five themes: connectivity and access to devices and data; digital accessibility and information literacy; workforce digital skills and confidence; partnerships; and digital inclusion knowledge and expertise. The ICB commits to using analytics to better understand digital inclusion barriers and gaps, both in the workforce and wider population. User-centred design and co-production will inform all digital projects to ensure accessibility and usability, and a focus will be placed on those experiencing the greatest health inequalities. Improved digital connectivity and accessible public services will add to economic prosperity and social equity, it continues, and clear and inclusive communication will help improve understanding of digital health capabilities and benefits.
In our first instalment of the HTN ICB Region Series, we turned to London, taking a deep dive into what’s happening with digital and data across the region, exploring pilots and innovations, strategies, case studies, and insights from the sector.
