The long-awaited NHS 10 Year Health Plan, unveiled today by Sir Keir Starmer, has set out a bold vision for reshaping health and care in England with community and the NHS App at its core to deliver for patients.
But its success, many argue, hinges on how effectively digital technology can be harnessed, and if the plan can actually deliver change.
Fit for the future promises that science and technology is key to reinvention and that the plan will narrow health inequalities, but delivery details remain light, leaving numerous questions of how ambitions will be translated into action.
In response to the announcement, health tech leaders from across the sector have voiced a mix of optimism and caution.
Many welcome the focus on community and data-driven care, but stress that years of underinvestment, fragmented systems, and inconsistent policy support have left a fragile foundation.
Nick Wilson, CEO of System C said:
Transforming public services and increasing productivity through investing in automation and AI is a hugely positive step in the right direction.
To truly unlock the potential of these innovations though, we need to see the proof of value these systems deliver in terms of real cash and non-cash releasing benefits, going beyond simple deployment statistics.
This requires accountability for delivering value for money with new technologies, rather than just lip service during procurement.
If we back the British technology companies who can deploy this AI, we can ensure digital transformation is tailored to our unique health and social care system, driving job creation and supporting the UK economy.
Crucially, appropriate governance must be in place to drive innovation rather than stifle it, while always ensuring patient and citizen safety
Sharon Hanley, Director of Primary Care at X-on Health, said:
Primary care has always been the front door to the NHS, but as the focus shifts from hospital to community-based care, this role is more vital than ever.
While a GP-centric approach aligned to the neighbourhood model provides a strong foundation, the real opportunity lies in embedding Integrated Neighbourhood Teams at the heart of this transformation.
Delivered nationally but shaped locally, INTs are key to bringing care closer to people’s homes and tailoring support to meet the specific needs of communities.
To achieve this, primary care delivery must continue to evolve – leveraging advances in AI and technology to enhance access, eliminate the 8am rush, and reduce pressure on GPs and wider primary care teams.
These are all challenges we’re actively addressing with partners like Tortus AI and Curistica, and we intend to accelerate this progress.
As part of this, digital telephony has been widely adopted but there is more that can be done to improve the utilisation of the advanced features now available.
As the population grows and ages, it is crucial that the ambitions set out in the 10 Year Plan move beyond aspiration and translate into real, measurable improvements for patients – enabled through innovation, integration, and local collaboration.
Dr Harry Thirkettle, a former NHS surgeon turned clinical entrepreneur who now heads up Health Innovation at Leeds-based ‘tech for good’ consultancy Aire Logic, said:
The NHS 10 Year Health Plan offers an encouraging shift towards prevention, digital delivery and more care outside traditional hospital walls. But to make this vision real, we need to go further and think differently.
These ambitions need to be backed by the kind of challenger thinking that reshaped industries like banking – where brands like Monzo started from user needs, not inherited systems.
If digital and community are to take over from hospitals it requires a seamless, joined-up infrastructure and central to this will be achieving a single patient record that follows individuals across settings. Without that foundation, we risk layering innovation on top of fragmentation.
Rich Pugmire, CEO at Answer Digital, said:
In the expected shifts it is welcoming to see a move towards community-based care and digital delivery, with the NHS App playing a central role.
Through our involvement in projects such as the Metrocentre Community Diagnostic Centre we know first-hand just how impactful community-based approaches can be and how they can deliver secondary care services, but understanding the role and importance of data is at the core and this element must be managed correctly.
Turning ambition into accountable action is by no means a small task and delivery of the plan is paramount.
Alongside strong leadership, it is key that the SDEs work together and align with the recently launched Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, ensuring that patient data is used to its full advantage, and managed correctly and securely.
Only then will the general public put their trust in the NHS to embrace the new approach.
Dr Rachael Grimaldi, Co-Founder and CEO at CardMedic, said:
It’s encouraging to see the new NHS 10 Year Health Plan has a focus on addressing health inequalities and bringing care closer to communities, but we need to think about whether it truly addresses fundamental communication barriers that still prevent effective patient care, particularly in urgent or unplanned situations.
While increased investment is welcome, real transformation demands sustained commitment for innovative projects and clear accountability for funds, ensuring they don’t vanish into ‘black holes’ instead of driving crucial structural reform long term.
Kath Dean, President at Cloud21, said:
The commitment to a digitally-enabled future health service is clear.
What’s needed now is a focus on how we deliver the change needed, successfully and sustainably.
That shift requires investment in people, processes and culture and ensure we’re not just investing in tech – but in outcomes.
Emerging innovations, such as AI tools and the development of a single patient record, offer exciting opportunities.
But to realise their potential, we must align technology to purpose and help NHS staff transition between traditional ways of working and a digital future.
That’s how we’ll build confidence and achieve digital productivity.
The NHS has made important strides in digital investment.
To continue to unlock the full value of these efforts and realise benefits, we must ensure that digital workflows are matured around the needs of clinicians, operational teams and their patients.
We must connect and maximise the solutions already in place to enable more joined-up care, support out-of-hospital models, and promote prevention.
Long-term service transformation is a journey, built-on tech, used by people and beholden to processes.
Bridging the gap between them, redesigning more efficient, safer processes that work for frontline teams, operational staff, and their patients, must come first.
It’s about helping people work differently in a digital environment, and focusing relentlessly on improving patient safety, experience and outcomes.
It’s then that we will find the efficiencies needed, embed the highest possible safety standards, whilst improving experience and outcomes for patients and staff.
Daniel Park, CEO at In Touch Now, said:
Intelligent use of AI, as highlighted in the plan with AI scribes and digital telephony, will amplify human capabilities, allowing healthcare professionals to focus on complex, empathetic care.
We know that AI receptionists present a significant opportunity for the NHS to improve access, but we can go further with an AI-human hybrid which offers practices and patients the ultimate choice – providing 24/7 intelligent call handling, routing and triage.
It will be interesting to see if we can make a joined-up digital infrastructure, with a single patient record and smarter AI integration truly work.
The real value from AI will only emerge when we have seamless integration with existing systems and the secure capture of structured data.
Alex Johnston, HIS Country Leader for UK&I, Solventum, said:
As the UK Government outlines its NHS 10 Year Health Plan, a bold and necessary vision emerges: one that aims to create a more preventative, personalised, and digitally enabled healthcare system.
At the heart of this transformation lies a deep recognition that technology – particularly Artificial Intelligence – must move from the periphery of innovation to the centre of care delivery.
We are at a watershed moment.
The convergence of policy ambition, public need, and technological maturity offers a rare opportunity to reshape the healthcare landscape for patients and staff alike.
As a leader in healthcare technology, we believe AI holds the key to making this plan not just possible, but sustainable.
With the right safeguards already in place to ensure safety and governance, the priority now must be on giving clinicians access to compliant, proven digital tools.
Successful adoption relies on co-design with users, system-wide interoperability, and enterprise scalability.
Evidence from live projects at hospitals demonstrate how we have the ability to deliver service transformation, reduce administrative burden, improve data quality, and enable smarter, real-time decision-making.
Claire Graham, Director at Health Call, said:
Putting patients front and centre of their care lies at the heart of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan and to do this, making use of existing national infrastructure, such as the NHS App, makes absolute sense.
We welcome the ambition to democratise care by providing easier access to services and ensuring people are in control of their own health, via the App.
What we need to support this vision, and make it a reality, are cost-effective digital solutions that work for the people that will use them, patients, their care teams, and operational staff, from across our health services.
As an NHS-owned organisation, we know from experience that co-created, capable solutions deliver sustainable, lasting impact. Shiny new features, created in isolation, do not.
Digital inclusion out in our communities will be fundamental to more widespread roll-out of patient involvement, self-management and remote care models.
Whilst we wait for the £1.9bn investment in rural broadband to take effect, we should prioritise solutions that cater for individuals without smartphones or email accounts, redressing inequalities and also proven to reduce DNAs.
Phil Bottle, Managing Director and Co-Founder of SARD, said:
A reform plan which includes something as leftfield as ‘patient power payments’ before having an aligned workforce plan, in a system that doesn’t even know what work needs doing, isn’t reform, it’s distraction theatre.
Moving from a health system that rewards throughput to one that rewards outcomes is a positive direction of travel, but I don’t see how this will work in practice.
The only sustainable model is one that’s demand-led, outcome-aligned, and workforce-enabled. We should be focused on funding functions, not roles and paying for outcomes, not activity.
Although, it’s disappointing to see that the plan isn’t addressing this straight away, it’s promising that the government has committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan later this year that will move towards this approach.
It needs to finally address what workforce is needed, what they should do, where they will be deployed and with what skills.
Otherwise, we will continue to reward presence over purpose and wondering why nothing improves.
Mark Hutchinson, Senior Vice President – Healthcare Strategy & Transformation, Altera Digital Health UK & EMEA, said:
It’s an important day for the NHS, the 10 Year Plan is finalised so it means all concerned can focus on implementing the changes and, crucially, driving real-world impact for patients and health professionals.
This plan must be the catalyst for change for long overdue digitisation.
Because digital is the cornerstone in so many other areas of people’s lives, the public rightly assumes the NHS has strong digital foundations.
It’s vital we bridge that gap between perception and reality to support an NHS that can keep pace with society and enable better outcomes for everyone.
Altera will be putting all our efforts into supporting NHS providers to make the digital leap that is required with programmes that increase digital maturity, optimise systems, join up care with integrated data and implement tech at scale.
Darren Ransley, Managing Director UK & Ireland at Better, said:
The NHS 10 Year Health Plan offers a much-needed long-term vision, and we welcome its emphasis on digital transformation as a driver of sustainable, person-centred care.
At the heart of this transformation must be the Single Patient Record (SPR) – not just as a technical ambition, but as the grounds of truly joined-up care across the NHS.
It will drive proactive, continuous care that empowers both patients and clinicians, as we have seen with the SPR implementations that we have supported across Greece, Malta, Slovenia, Catalonia, and London.
With care plans, the NHS App, and other forms of digital tools, we can truly bring the patient into the centre of their care journey, but only if it is powered by a shared data backbone that supports real-time access, consent, and integration across care settings.
The commitment to interoperability, openness, and patient control outlined in the plan aligns strongly with Better’s approach, and we are committed to working with NHS partners to bring our learnings from similar digital and data initiatives in order to serve both today’s needs and tomorrow’s ambitions.
Matt Newby, Managing Director at Silver Buck, the UK’s leading health tech communications agency, said:
With the right digital infrastructure and by learning from industries that have successfully embraced technology, the NHS can deliver a modern, connected version of the neighbourhood care model.
By moving from bricks to clicks as suggested in the plan, technology can bring care closer to people, rather than demanding they come closer to care.
However, right now, that vision remains more aspiration than reality and delivery needs to be clear.
The government has to step up with a series of actions, creating the right environment and infrastructure to enable this change.
Until significant barriers are removed, the neighbourhood model risks being little more than an ambition.
