Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust has set out plans for 2026/27 in its annual digital plan, with an “ambitious roadmap” intended to help the trust leverage digital technology as a primary enabler to achieve its wider goals.
Ambitions for the next year, it says, include delivering a single trust-wide digital portfolio, optimising core clinical systems, expanding digitally enabled care, and achieving a four-to-six percent administrative time reduction in pilot areas through the adoption of AI-supported documentation.
Planned actions cover the standardisation of SystmOne templates and care plans, scaling of mobile-first working via Brigid for real-time documentation, to pilot AI-supported documentation, and deliver near real-time divisional Power BI dashboards, the trust goes on. Waiting list validation will be automated, the virtual frailty ward will be enabled with remote monitoring and unified clinical dashboards, remote psychological therapies will be explored, and efforts will be made to improve cyber hygiene through patching, identity, and privileged access.
On its enabling digital strategy, key initiatives and targets are set by the trust in line with What Good Looks Like, including having 75 percent of patients actively using its patient portal by 2026/27, working with partners to implement a patient-held record system from 2028 onward, and exploring opportunities for cognitive AI to offer personalised health advice and support via chatbots and virtual assistants.
An AI scribe will be piloted and rolled out in clinical settings in 2026/27, beginning with mental health and community services, and with a goal for 90 percent of clinical notes to be automatically transcribed. Building on the trust’s implementation of a new data platform with Power BI, deep learning will be utilised in the analysis of clinical data to enable patient outcomes to be predicted and at-risk individuals to be identified for preventative interventions. The move to cloud-based infrastructure is to be accelerated to improve scalability and access, the trust adds.
By 2030, Humber Teaching looks to explore quantum computing, primarily for tasks such as complex drug discovery, personalised medicine, and large-scale data analysis. AI-driven systems will be deployed to monitor network traffic and user behaviour to identify security threats proactively, and in-house capabilities will be developed for digital forensics in order to support capacity in investigating and responding to security incidents. The trust also shares ambitions to use cognitive AI to manage and optimise its IT infrastructure, preventing system failures before they occur.
Humber Teaching also plans to work with partners to increase the use of the Yorkshire & Humber Care Record and the National Care Record, to use its data platforms to analyse population health trends and support neighbourhood health, and to deploy AI models to predict disease outbreaks.
In a parting conclusion, Humber Teaching CIO Lee Rickles shared: “Our Enabling Digital Strategy is a bold statement of our ambition. It is a commitment to our patients, our staff, and our partners to build a future where digital technology enhances every aspect of healthcare delivery.”
Wider trend: Digital transformation in Yorkshire & Humber
Humber Health Partnership, comprised of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, has updated on a number of key digital programmes and priorities, noting the digitisation of mental capacity assessments, the use of VR in specialist rehabilitation, medication safety, and EPR progress.
Humber and North Yorkshire Collaboration of Acute Providers annual report for 2025/26 has shared achievements across imaging, diagnostics and order comms, with discussion on next steps and the future of acute care in the region. Focuses for 2025/26 included reducing unwarranted variation and improving timely imaging and reporting through the development of standardised pathways, the collaboration outlines. Procurement has been completed for an order comms solution to support GPs to request imaging tests electronically, along with a shared history and reporting extension to the radiology information system to enable clinicians to view patient imaging completed elsewhere in the network.
An AI policy from Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust has outlined its acceptable uses, practical guidance, and responsibility for the use of AI tools and systems. “The trust is committed to fostering a culture of innovation across all levels of the organisation, encouraging staff to explore new ideas, challenge conventional practices, and embrace creative solutions that enhance patient care, operational efficiency, and workforce wellbeing,” Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber states. “As part of this commitment, we actively support the responsible exploration and integration of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.”
