Estimated £21bn over five years needed to digitise health and care
Malte Gerhold, director of innovation and improvement at The Health Foundation, is one of the data and technology enabling working group members (Credit: The Health Foundation)
Digitising NHS and adult social care services across the UK will require an estimated £21bn over the next five years, according to research by the Health Foundation.
The independent charity commissioned PA Consulting to assess the investment needed to achieve ambitions for digitisation, including infrastructure such as electronic patient records (EPRs), cloud storage, cyber security and Wi-Fi, along with the skills and capabilities to use it effectively.
Of the £21bn total figure estimated for digitisation, £14.75bn is for England.
Dr Malte Gerhold, director of innovation and improvement at the Health Foundation, said: “Ministers have repeatedly stressed the need for health and care services to move from analogue to digital.
“Our independently commissioned research finds that to achieve the government’s ambitions to digitise health and social care, significant spending will be needed over the next five years and beyond.
“But direct investment in technology alone is not sufficient. The government must fund the change not just the tech.
“This means investing in and planning for implementation and change to genuinely realise the benefits of digitisation for patients and staff.”
The analysis estimates a cost of £8bn in capital spending (of which £5bn is for England), including hardware, software, EPRs and wider infrastructure.
It estimates £3bn for one-off revenue spending (of which £2.25bn is for England), to cover planning, initial education and training, implementation of new technologies and transition from old systems.
The figure also includes £2bn recurring annual revenue spending (of which £1.5bn per annum is for England) over five years, which covers ongoing training, software subscriptions, maintenance, improvement and optimisation.
Debates about digitisation often assume the resources required will be capital spending on hardware and infrastructure costs, but the Health Foundation’s research highlights the importance of revenue spending to support implementation, pay for software subscriptions, maintenance, optimisation and other ongoing costs, and invest in training and development for staff.
The Health Foundation set out three key actions for government and policymakers across the UK, to ensure the NHS and social care services can meet ambitions for digitisation:
- Set a clear, transformative and durable vision for digitisation in health and social care
- Support the vision for digitisation with the required funding
- Develop a plan for realising the benefits of digitisation – including higher quality care, better patient experience, better staff experience and improved productivity.
In the absence of a publicly available official figure for the cost of existing commitments to digitise the NHS and adult social care, this research is the first evidence-based attempt to provide such an estimate.
The Health Foundation highlights that recurring costs will be ongoing beyond the five-year period that was the focus of its research.
Its research also reveals important gaps in publicly available information on the costs and benefits of digitisation.
The research has been published ahead of the forthcoming spending review and the 10 year health plan, expected to be published in June 2025, which will set out the government’s plans to shift the NHS from ‘analogue to digital’.
