NHS to TechHS: An imperative

The health service would greatly benefit from a digital revolution.

The Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting, came in for criticism when he recently described it as “absurd” that it can be easier to get a haircut than a GP appointment.

Analogies can oversimplify complex systems and sometimes miss the point entirely. However, the NHS does endure contrasts with everyday life that are difficult to ignore. The care it delivers is often extraordinary, yet it is sometimes delivered despite, rather than because of, the technology available.

Today’s technology gap

You can track your takeaway pizza in real time on an app, but trying to track a patient through a hospital often relies on whiteboards and flipcharts. An Uber vehicle operating in London cannot be more than seven years old, yet MRI and CT scanners in the same city are frequently more than a decade old, with reports of machines from the 1990s still in use. Cars now alert drivers to blind spots and will soon be driving themselves on London’s streets, while clinicians interpret complex scans with no assistance at all.

Paper, DVDs, decades-old technology and outdated software remain a reality across hospitals and GP practices. In fact, a recent survey we conducted with hundreds of NHS surgeons found that 79 per cent felt technology was limiting their ability to perform at their best, with hours wasted each week on inefficient systems. At best, this is an irritating norm. At worst, it is demoralising and directly gets in the way of care.

It is no surprise, then, that the Ten Year Health Plan for England, published last July, places such emphasis on moving the NHS from analogue to digital. Patients are promised greater control through digital tools, but it is equally critical that the workforce is empowered with better technology.

Digital transformation is non-negotiable

The NHS is at a tipping point. Rising demand, workforce shortages and an ageing population are pushing the system to its limits. Innovation is no longer optional, but essential to survival.

I’ve said it before – digitally transforming the NHS might be the most complex digital project on the planet. But there are signs of progress. Innovative technologies are beginning to embed across the system. At Medtronic, these range from AI-powered assistance during colonoscopies to streaming technologies in the operating room and automated benchmarking of surgical performance within NHS trusts. Other UK companies, such as Brainomix, are also demonstrating how AI can support clinical decision-making. The government, too, is taking steps to prepare the system for wider adoption of AI, with the new National Commission on the Regulation of AI in Healthcare one example.

Yet the challenge is not simply to innovate, but to do so safely, consistently and at scale. Moving from isolated pilots to regular, system-wide adoption demands national leadership and shared standards. This is the opportunity now facing the NHS.

The question is: how do we get there? The first step is trust. It is essential, but it does not create scale on its own. That tension was captured recently by the MHRA chief executive, Lawrence Tallon, who noted that if we want to see innovation adopted at scale, we will have to automate and adopt AI far more widely, but that nothing will slow progress faster than losing patient and public trust. Balancing speed with safety, and innovation with confidence, now defines the moment the NHS faces. Public trust is the foundation, not the brake. Without it, even the most advanced technologies will fail to be integrated. But trust alone does not create scale. Structure matters too.

Secondly, it’s industry collaboration to support the NHS’s digital transformation. The NHS holds vast amounts of data, but it remains fragmented, and innovation is often siloed. As AI evolves from analysing information to providing real-time guidance, including in the operating theatre, trust will increasingly depend on strong, shared governance. Clinicians and patients need confidence in how systems are validated, regulated and secured, and that confidence cannot be built by the NHS acting alone. It requires collaboration with industry, regulators and academia, underpinned by transparent standards and clear accountability, to ensure innovation is governed consistently and can scale safely across the system.

Thirdly, it’s the critical role of the National Commission on the Regulation of AI in coordinating and enabling innovation. Trust and governance are inseparable. Both must be in place if innovation is to move beyond pilots and into everyday care.

For the government’s launch of the Commission to be a success, it shouldn’t be judged by the frameworks it produces alone, but by how effectively it brings people together. It will be transformative if it moves beyond a narrow regulatory role. It should act as a convening force, aligning government with industry, academia with regulators and clinicians with developers – to drive real outcomes. These partnerships can help turn caution into capability, ensuring innovation moves not only faster, but in the same direction, scaling safely and equitably across the NHS.

Modernising a national institution

The NHS does not lack innovation. What it has struggled with is cutting-edge digital technology at scale. Too often, promising technologies remain confined to pilots, unable to spread consistently across a complex system.

This is a test of whether the UK can modernise a national institution, and getting to digital transformation at scale depends on three things. First: trust, from patients and the workforce, that new technologies are safe, effective and used in their interests. Second, strong governance, so innovation is validated, regulated and adopted consistently rather than in isolation. And third, coordination, to align a fragmented system around shared standards and a common direction of travel.

If this moment is seized, the NHS will not simply modernise its hospitals. It will show how digital technologies, robotics and human connection can work together to build the operating room, and the health system, of the future.

How we digitally transform the NHS will be explored at a roundtable hosted by Medtronic, with policymakers, clinicians and industry leaders in early 2026, in partnership with the
New Statesman.