Great beginnings: innovators react to the 10 Year Health Plan for England

Two weeks have passed since the long-awaited 10 Year Health Plan for England was published, and its implications for the health and care system are slowly but surely starting to become clear.

With a number of closely-related policy documents following in short order, such as the Life Sciences Sector Plan, National Cancer Plan and revised Workforce Plan, it is clear that the Plan is not the final picture, but instead a major piece of a complex puzzle. However, what it does provide is some reassurance and positive direction – something that innovators have been craving since plans to abolish NHS England were set out earlier in the year.

Aside from the three shifts that have become a familiar part of health and care vernacular since Lord Darzi’s investigation into the NHS was published last year (hospital to community; sickness to prevention; and analogue to digital), the Plan contains  many positive pledges that recognise digital innovation’s transformative role in the health care systems of the future. “Digital” and “innovation” each clocked up 122 mentions in the Plan, spanning sections on dedicated funding and innovation regions; innovator passports; a fully implemented HealthStore within the NHS App; and shifts to procurement models that favour value-based healthcare.

What do DigitalHealth.London innovators think?

In the days following the publication of the Plan, we shared an open call with innovators in the DigitalHealth.London network to voice their reactions, asking four questions:

1. Did the Plan meet your expectations and how will it impact your innovation? 
2. Which elements of the Plan stood out, especially for your innovation?
3. What would you have added or changed, especially as an innovator?
4. Considering the Plan, what practical actions would you like to see from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England (NHSE) or others to assist with your next steps?

Here, we share some key themes from the feedback, along with reflections on what innovators would like to see next to enable them to contribute to a health system that is “fit for the future”.

Patient-led care

There was a renewed focus on putting patients at the heart of health and care, reflected not only by Change NHS, the public consultation for the plan that launched in December 2024, but also initiatives like the 5 Big Bets. These include data to deliver impact; AI to drive productivity; geonomics and predictive analysis; wearables to make care ‘real time’; and robotics to support precision. These technology-led priorities drive a shift from sickness to prevention, giving patients access to real-time insights, resources and tools to enable informed decision-making and personalised care.  

Antony Wilson, Global Head of Commercial at Smart Respiratory, said: “The ‘5 big bets’, one of which is providing wearable devices to patients in areas of high health inequalities for remote or virtual monitoring, is a welcome introduction.

At present, there are too many obstacles to innovation, so this will only work if there is a behavioural change by the NHS, NICE and MHRA. Continuous glucose monitoring has transformed diabetes care, so wearables and remote monitoring have the potential to transform respiratory care and help reduce waiting times and hospital admissions.

The initial long-term condition to be rolled out will be cardiovascular disease, so hopefully respiratory will follow shortly afterwards.”

The shift to a preventative care model, including continuous support and self-management, aligns with the ambitions of many innovations in our network to empower patients to have an active understanding and role in their care. Around 65% of companies on the current cohort of the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator, for example, are working in self-management.

Cara Oliver, Lead for Specialist Services and NHS Partnerships – UK at NuvoAir, reflected: “By providing a home spirometry service with NHS App interface, we can support the move from analogue to digital in the community setting.

The long-term aim of our work is that if patients understand their disease and results, they can be empowered to self-manage and monitor their condition, hopefully reducing the burden on GPs, Emergency Departments and prevent hospital admissions, all which feeds into the shift from sickness to prevention.”

Innovator Passport

One of the big talking points from the Plan was the proposed creation of ‘Innovator Passports’ by 2026. These Passports have the potential to streamline duplicative assessments for innovative healthtech, saving time and money whilst encouraging NHS organisations to champion solutions which have met robust criteria for safety and effectiveness.

Nader Alaghband, Ampersand Health Co-Founder, reflected: “We believe the Innovator Passport could be transformational — but only if it rewards evidence, quality and compliance, not just novelty. In practical terms, we’d like to see DHSC and NHSE move quickly to define the Passport’s scope, governance and how it links to digital formularies, the NHS App’s HealthStore and transformation budgets. A transparent, staged pathway with clear feedback loops would allow innovators to plan, invest and improve continuously.”

Dedicated funding and Regional Health Innovation Zones

The Plan sets out an ambition for more ringfenced and easier-to-access funding for digital, bolstered by new models for commissioning and procurement. Multi-year budgets and financial reforms, such as the requirements for NHS organisations to reserve at least 3% of annual spend for one-time service transformation investments, underscore a desire from DHSC for greater long-term commitments to innovations with large-scale potential.

Elsewhere, Regional Health Innovation Zones, which will bring together ICBs, providers, local authorities and industry, also point to new opportunities to level the spread of innovation. Up to three regions with strong life sciences, health and data environments will be selected to trailblaze this new experimental commissioning model, with the potential to improve economic and health challenges across larger geographies.

However, our respondents raised questions about the practicalities of ringfencing these budgets, especially as ICBs reduce costs by 50%, and said it was unclear how new commissioning procurement models would impact the flow of funding.

There are a host of proven technologies out there at the moment who have all been waiting on good news in the 10 Year Health Plan. It’s great that there is more money in the NHS…but how do you navigate it all? How will the funding flow? What practical steps should we be taking now to ensure we are as best placed as possible? Which technologies will be procured once by the NHS and how do you go about achieving this? There are so many questions.

– DigitalHealth.London alumnus

Learning from global health models

The tone throughout the Plan is largely optimistic. This extends to sections exploring our global strengths and how our health and care systems could be propelled into a position of global leadership by “our country’s excellence in science, innovation and academia.”

With this forward-thinking attitude, it also recognised lessons to learn from healthcare models and initiatives across the world. For example, South Korea’s smart hospital network was cited as evidence for the effectiveness of digital-and-AI enabled modern hospitals.  Elsewhere, Australia and Brazil were commended for their approach to neighbourhood care.

On this element of the Plan, Antony Wilson of Smart Respiratory said: “I had the privilege of visiting Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, 18 months ago on a trade mission to South Korea. I was shown how they used digital health to improve efficiencies. I could never have imagined the NHS adopting such systems, so it’s great to see we are learning from other global health systems.”

What would DigitalHealth.London innovators like to see next?

The Plan was welcomed by innovators in our network for its clear commitment to digital and ambition in supporting the spread and adoption of value-based technologies. By recognising the importance of cross-sector collaboration, the Plan positions innovation as crucial to the future of the healthcare system in England. This was described as “a clear break from the past” by Nader Alaghband, Ampersand Health Co-Founder, who went on to say that “the ambition is right. We now need to move quickly to practical implementation.”

It is really important that we see rapid traction as a result of this plan. For our innovation, it does seem exciting and marries with the conversations we have been having, and it has bought us time – but the clock is ticking for many SMEs.

– DigitalHealth.London alumnus

This sentiment of the Plan being a “great beginning” was reflected by all respondents. Three key themes emerged in terms of considerations for the government, NHSE and regional leaders on maintaining a positive trajectory for implementation:

1. Transparent timelines, implementation framework and time-stamped evaluation;
2. Clarity about funding, incentives and contracting;
3. Expanding the use of support structures that are already available, such as the Health Innovation Networks and the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator, to provide support to innovators in aligning with the plan.

Thank you to the innovators in our network that shared their responses and contributed to this blog post.

The DigitalHealth.London Accelerator programme is funded by the UK Government via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). It is delivered by the Health Innovation Network (HIN) South London in partnership with the Office of Life Sciences, CW+, NHS England and the Mayor of London.

For more information, please visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-
shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus.