Nhs 10-year Plan Summary & Takeaways for Medical Technology Companies
The NHS 10 Year Plan, released last week, sets out a long-term vision for a digitally enabled, community-led and outcomes-focused health system that leverages technology and innovation including AI.
While national plans often take time to translate into local action, this document is clear in its direction of travel across 3 key areas –hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention, with relevant enablers to achieve this, although the actual delivery plan is expected in September.
Where this relates to health technology – our primary focus – this is mostly encouraging and welcomed, and reflects what I sent out in our previous note. I believe there are 8 key topics of interest for health technology companies, in particularly at the intersection of evidence generation and reimbursement for digital health, medical technologies and AI-enabled solutions.
While this indicates a shift to some national intervention and reimbursement of health technologies for well-evidenced, national priority use cases, there is also a strong shift to local leadership and procurement through NHS Foundation Trusts, Integrated Health Organisations, and the Neighbourhood Health Service (Neighbourhood Health Centres).
Generally, a two-pronged approach is therefore recommended for interim commercialisation and local growth while aligning evidence and priorities with national expectations.
1. A new national pathway for digital products via the NHS HealthStore
One of the clearest commitments in the plan is the introduction of the HealthStore, a centrally managed list of NICE-approved (initially) digital technologies. This will sit within the NHS App and provide patients with access to condition-specific tools for prevention, monitoring and treatment. Critically, tools listed in the HealthStore will be procured centrally by the NHS, with funding drawn from national budgets.
This signals a step change: digital health technologies will, in select cases, be treated similarly to medicines — with national price negotiations, evidence-based selection, and mandated adoption pathways. This has been the direction of travel and reaffirms the rhetoric from NICE and the centre more broadly. NICE’s technology appraisal remit will expand to cover a wider range of devices, diagnostics and digital products, particularly those that support financial sustainability or address major system pressures (e.g. adolescent mental health, obesity, or chronic conditions were highlighted).
Implication: For companies pursuing reimbursement through NICE HTA routes, there is now a credible pathway to national procurement and inclusion on an approved platform. It also reinforces the value of rigorous early evidence and real-world data generation aligned with NICE and NHS priorities.
2. Remote monitoring and personal health budgets to support long-term condition management
The plan formalises a system-wide ambition for proactive care, with remote monitoring and biosensor data feeding into shared care records and the NHS App. This is designed to enable earlier interventions, particularly in patients at risk of deterioration. Technologies that support this shift will be procured through a new national digital platform, with implementation support at ICB level.
At the same time, the government aims to double the number of people with a Personal Health Budget (PHB) by 2028/29, with a longer-term ambition for universal PHB entitlement by 2035.
Implication: Patient-facing technologies that support condition management, symptom tracking or preventative care may benefit from multiple access routes — through PHBs, through clinical recommendation, or via national HealthStore inclusion. This aligns with emerging international trends, including DiGA in Germany and mHealthBelgium, towards personalised reimbursement and direct-to-patient funding models.
3. Community-based care through Neighbourhood Health Centres
The Plan marks a formal shift away from a hospital-centric model of care, introducing Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) as the new delivery platform for out-of-hospital services. These centres will be open longer hours, host multidisciplinary teams, and serve as a gateway for prevention, mental health, and urgent care.
Spending is expected to shift over the next 3–5 years, this would imply a reduced share allocated to acute trusts and an increase in funding for community and neighbourhood-based care.
Implication: This creates new entry points for digital and remote care tools, particularly those designed for earlier-stage or sub-clinical interventions. It also creates new stakeholder dynamics: neighbourhood teams, community providers, and to an extent ICBs who will shift (back) towards the role of commissioner, will likely have growing influence over procurement and service design.
4. Adoption of AI and automation to support productivity
The NHS has committed to widespread adoption of AI technologies over the next decade to improve clinical productivity and free up staff time. This includes:
National roll-out of AI scribes and administrative automation tools
Adoption of AI decision support tools in radiology, dermatology, and pathology
Introduction of national procurement platforms to accelerate access
A 2% annual productivity gain is targeted, with investment prioritised for technologies that demonstrably save time or reduce administrative burden.
Implication: For companies developing AI-enabled tools, the emphasis will increasingly be on measurable time savings, productivity gains, and clinical efficiency — not only clinical outcomes. The funding environment for these technologies is likely to improve as central budgets shift towards productivity-enabling infrastructure.
5. Integrated Health Organisations and new freedoms for innovation
The Plan introduces a new institutional model: Integrated Health Organisations (IHOs). These are high-performing NHS Foundation Trusts with a proven track record in quality, financial management, and partnership working. From 2027, they may be permitted to:
Hold the entire health budget for their local population
Reinvest savings into capital, digital transformation, and innovation
Support startups and SMEs through partnerships and potentially direct investment
Implication: IHOs will be important strategic partners for scaling innovation. They will have greater freedom to pilot new models of care and deploy technologies at pace, particularly where they align with population health goals. Early engagement with these trusts may open routes to co-development and long-term contracting.
6. The Innovator Passport - a national approach to adoption and scale
The NHS will introduce an Innovator Passport by 2026 to streamline adoption pathways. Once a product has been robustly evaluated (although there is little detail on this) and implemented in one part of the system, other organisations will not be permitted to require repeat evaluations. There will also be a presumption of adoption for technologies that are cost-neutral and improve quality.
Implication: This addresses a longstanding barrier to scale: the repeated, inconsistent evaluation of the same product across multiple trusts. For companies that clear the evidence bar, the path to national scale may now be faster and more predictable.
7. Embedding prevention and population health into commissioning
The Plan ties health policy closely to economic and social outcomes — with an explicit ambition to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy and reduce economic inactivity linked to health. “Health and Growth Accelerators” will be accountable for workforce participation and health outcomes in their areas. There is likely a greater role within business cases for PROMs and PREMs with a focus on QALYs within procurement decisions.
Implication: Primary and secondary prevention tools, including those focused on obesity, mental health, and children’s health and chronic disease management, will increasingly need to demonstrate population-level and quality of life impact. There may be new opportunities for digital products that combine clinical outcomes with economic benefits — e.g. reduced time off work, improved self-management, or enhanced workforce wellbeing. There is a strong need to generate this robust evidence early and align with HTA (NICE) and reimbursement expectations.
8. Procurement reform – towards outcomes and value
The NHS has acknowledged that its historic procurement practices have prioritised lowest cost over best value. A new value-based procurement framework will be introduced, focusing on outcomes, patient experience, and economic efficiency.
Implication: Health tech companies will need to build commercial narratives grounded in robust data: not only evidence of clinical effectiveness, but of real-world value and system impact. This should be reflected in pricing, business cases, and market access strategies.
Final thoughts
This Plan offers one of the most explicit commitments to evidence-based innovation adoption we’ve seen from the NHS in recent years. While timelines remain long and local variation will persist, the strategic direction is clear: evidence, value, and outcomes are central to how digital and med tech products will be funded and adopted in the coming years.
