Various policy announcements in recent years have committed to increasing the adoption of digital technology in the NHS to improve productivity – as emphasised in Lord Darzi’s report and Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s speech in September 2024. One of the three core missions highlighted is to move the NHS from analogue to digital. For a sector that only phased out non-emergency use of fax machines and pagers just over five years ago and with limited resources, this is no small task.
Previous efforts to improve digital adoption within the NHS have failed, or been severely hindered, by a lack of focus on getting the basics right. To enable a successful transition to a digital approach across all its services, the NHS needs to lay the right foundations to improve the working lives of staff and provide better patient care. Government and NHS organisations need to commit appropriate resources so that staff have the necessary skills, infrastructure, and support to effectively use digital tools and systems.
Moving to a digital approach
The NHS’s transition from analogue to digital systems aims to replace paper-based records and services with online data and services but also to leverage digital approaches to improve efficiency and deliver services differently in a more integrated way. This shift involves modernising digital health and social care records, improving IT infrastructure, improving collaboration and digitising various processes, including patient records, communication and care delivery.
The Royal College of Physicians emphasised the digital resources needed in its January 2025 article ‘From analogue to digital: A vision for the NHS’:
“The importance of getting the digital basics right cannot be overstated. Functioning IT is central to improving patient care and the working lives of clinicians. There are already good examples of how transformative this can be, such as the NHS app, and electronic patient records.”
Why the shift?
Moving to a digital-first approach offers significant benefits for clinicians and patients including improved patient care, increased efficiency, and better use of data:
- Improved efficiency – Digital systems can streamline processes, reduce administrative tasks, and free up staff to focus on patient care.
- Enhanced communication and collaboration – Digital platforms enable better information sharing and coordination across departments and care settings.
- Data-driven decision making – Access to real-time data and analytics allows for better resource management, demand prediction, and improved care delivery.
- Better and safer patient experience – Digital solutions can reduce wait times, improve access to information, and personalise care, while reducing the risk of lost information or miscommunication during care delivery.
- Cost savings – While the initial investment is significant, digital solutions can lead to long-term cost savings by improving efficiency and reducing errors.
Getting the digital basics right
An open letter from Digital Health’s networks in January 2024 called for the then Secretary of State to focus on five priorities to achieve the shift to digital:
- Financial predictability, governance and trust
- Consistent focus on getting the basics right
- Workforce development and reducing digital burnout through improved user experience
- Data, shared records and interoperability
- Greater sharing of skills, knowledge and experience
The second priority to ‘get the basics right’ focused in more detail on ensuring that staff have access to the reliable devices, networks and Wi-Fi that are needed to do their job in a modern NHS. Without the ‘smart foundations’ in place they won’t be able to take full advantage of the benefits of digital technology to really implement change. The networks identified that failure to invest in digital basics is failing clinicians delivering care.
Recent NHS announcements have made clear that the direction of travel is centralised procurement and a high standard of digital and tech adoption across the NHS, which will empower local leaders to deliver care in the way that works best in their locality. This can only be achieved if there is trust in the ability for all NHS employees, regardless of location, to be able to confidently use the technology being procured as part of this strategy.
The hardware-software update ‘addiction’
Before adequate adoption of digital solutions can be reached, the basic IT infrastructure needs to be in place. Ensuring reliable devices, networks, and Wi-Fi access for staff and adequate IT resources to deploy, maintain and support them is essential for enabling them to work effectively in a digital environment.
As identified by Chief Clinical Information Officer Martin Farrier in an April 2025 Digital Health article, modern software struggles to run on old hardware and implementing complex digital solutions like electronic patient records is a challenge if the infrastructure can’t cope. Software updates feed the need for hardware updates that continue in an endless and expensive cycle. But there is no getting away from the update ‘addiction’ with cyber security a significant risk without essential patches and software updates.
Alongside improvements in hardware and software, there must be a clear focus on continual staff training so that these technologies are used effectively.
It isn’t clear how many NHS organisations have implemented a ‘bring your own device’ policy to enable staff to use their own devices for work purposes, an arguably more adequate solution than the expense and logistical challenges of fully owning a device estate for all staff.
Frameworks such as the Tech Devices – Link 4 framework agreement, announced in April 2022 and endorsed by NHS England, represent a step towards modernising NHS hardware, improving efficiency, and supporting the digital transformation of healthcare services.
Modern networks and Wi-Fi
The right basics also cover running digital solutions on modern mobile networks and up to date Wi-Fi, presenting additional challenges and costs across outdated NHS estates and the UK as a whole.
Research commissioned by Vodafone in 2023 highlighted that the NHS would lose out on £1 billion of savings every year if 5G was not rolled out quickly across the UK. NHS Digital’s March 2025 update states that 5G rollout is likely to take a further 18 months to 2 years in terms of its completion, which will continue to impact the NHS’s ability to increase its digital adoption.
NHS Digital reports that over 8,000 centres of patient care across England have been Wi-Fi enabled through the NHS Wi-Fi programme, so that over 63 million visiting patients and citizens could have access to free Wi-Fi. However, the quality of Wi-Fi within hospital and other provider settings for clinicians to make full use of digital tools to do their jobs more efficiently is less clear.
Conclusion
In the development of Bleepa® we have strived, where possible, to support NHS organisations when the digital basics might be lacking. We have aimed to ensure that Bleepa®’s functions (for example, the uploading and sharing of images) are as effective as they can be even in environments where Wi-Fi reception may be a challenge, or making it as easy and intuitive to deploy, use and maintain where IT support may be limited.
With the right level of investment, NHS organisations can take steps towards addressing issues with IT infrastructure and ensure that systems are up to date and user friendly.
By focusing on getting the basics right first, the NHS can lay the foundations for a successful digital transformation that gives staff better tools to improve efficiency, increase collaboration and provide better patient care.
We anticipate that the Department of Health and Social Care’s 10 Year Health Plan will outline more detail in the coming weeks on how it intends to support the NHS to make this significant shift from analogue to digital.