A growing realisation is taking hold: there will never be enough money to meet every demand, so the key lies in driving system-wide improvements and enabling local innovators to lead the way. With this in mind, Rewired\u2019s vast array of digital experts, NHS leaders and industry stakeholders put forward a cautiously optimistic vision of UK health and care\u2019s future, with some using the platform to inject a dose of realism into the digital healthcare debate.<\/p>\n
Just days after the Prime Minister\u2019s announcement to abolish NHS England, Rewired 2025 provided a platform for the sector to process the news and begin charting a path forward. Senior leaders, including NHS England\u2019s Transformation Director Vin Diwakar acknowledged the gravity of the decision. However, he and many senior figures speaking at Rewired framed it as a necessary step to reduce barriers to digital innovation.<\/p>\n
While uncertainty about the future was evident, the conference floor was abuzz with anticipation for the upcoming 10-Year Plan and how this can unlock innovation across health and care.<\/p>\n
Diwakar also used his keynote to reassure innovators and tech suppliers that the Government remains committed to digital investment, with a stronger focus on interoperability and unified procurement. There is a sense that NHS England\u2019s merge with DHSC presents an opportunity to free local innovators to drive implementation at pace.<\/p>\n
NHS productivity fell by over 20 per cent in 2020\/21, and bringing this back to pre-pandemic levels remains a monumental challenge. The government (much like every government in living memory) has claimed the solution lies in a digital future driven by AI.<\/p>\n
There is no doubt that digital innovation and AI are part of the solution, but they are not magic bullets for this deeply complex issue. Increased digitisation does not automatically lead to increased productivity. As Pritesh Mistry of The King\u2019s Fund put it:<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you digitse a broken process, you get a broken digital process.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The need to be realistic about digital was repeatedly borne out during discussions, with agreement that it is the job of sector leaders to tamper expectations and chart a realistic, iterative path to transformation.<\/p>\n
Dr Marc Farr of East Kent NHS Foundation Trust highlighted the importance of reframing digital innovation to ensure staff buy-in. Technology should not only improve efficiency but also enhance staff satisfaction and happiness. All staff understand the need to be more efficient, but tech should also make the NHS a happier place to work. Stephen Powis echoed this in his keynote address, emphasising how effective digital tools can boost staff satisfaction and retention in primary care.<\/p>\n
Getting a better deal on tech<\/h3>\n
Professor Powis also called for the NHS to drive better value from tech procurement, drawing comparisons with the NHS\u2019s ability to negotiate favourable drug prices. A more strategic approach to tech investment could deliver better outcomes and cost efficiencies.<\/p>\n
In a time where the NHS is being constantly told to live within its means and drive up productivity before receiving more funding, perhaps it\u2019s time for tech suppliers to be held to account for extracting digital benefits. With such focus on short-term savings, the business cases for digital transformation are increasingly difficult to develop. It was suggested that suppliers who benefit from recurring funding from lucrative NHS contracts should take a more central role in ensuring trusts and systems are able to extract value from their solutions. Enhanced collaboration is surely good for business, good for the NHS, and good for patients.<\/p>\n
True benefits of AI will be unlocked at system level<\/h3>\n
Dr Jess Morley of Yale University provided a refreshing dose of realism on AI in healthcare. In short, we have a long way to go before AI can transform our system.<\/p>\n
The current impact of AI on NHS services is tiny, with significant limitations in infrastructure holding back its capability. As Dr Morley argued, \u201cAI is a system level technology that allows us to redefine healthcare for the 21st century for modern populations, not simply address old problems with reskinned, age-old solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Healthcare is not just medicine, and the most important and impactful interventions (vaccines, testing, screening, etc) are made at the population level. In this context Dr Morley argued that the NHS is still only focusing AI on problems we already know how to solve, such as reading scans, rather than using it to transform systems. To harness AI\u2019s full potential, it should be applied to developing population-level interventions.<\/p>\n
Dr Morley went on to assert that our NHS approach to digital innovation is not yet centred on the right problems. The much-lauded potential of a single patient record across the UK, earmarked by many across the sector as the NHS\u2019 key to future survival and sustainability, is \u201cnot a solution to modern problems\u201d, and can never be paradigm-shifting as long as transformational thinking is based in silos.<\/p>\n
What about social care?<\/h3>\n
One notable gap in the discussions for which I was present was the lack of progress in digital adoption within social care. There is a risk that, amid the current phase of NHS reform, social care could once again be left behind. Achieving digital parity between the NHS and social care remains a significant challenge and, if James Mackey\u2019s new NHS England transition team is anything to go by, social care is going to be waiting a while before it receives the same attention for service transformation as the NHS.<\/p>\n
Rewired 2025 underscored the need for both strategic investment and realistic expectations about what digital can achieve. The sector is moving towards a more mature understanding of tech\u2019s role \u2013 not as a cure-all, but as a vital tool for improving both productivity and staff experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rewired 2025 offered a timely and valuable touchpoint for a healthcare sector still absorbing the shockwaves of seismic reform and uncertainty. Speakers struck a careful balance between optimism about the future and realism about what is possible in a resource-constrained environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":6022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,44,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-implementation","category-featured","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6024,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions\/6024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/integratedcarejournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}