NHS England published its latest Digital Maturity Assessment results at the end of March, benchmarking how NHS trusts are progressing on digital capability across England.
The findings highlighted continued variation in areas such as EPR adoption, data quality and overall digital maturity across the system.
Against this backdrop, April has seen continued acceleration in the deployment of AI, automation and connected care technologies across the NHS.
This month’s activity highlights continued acceleration in AI-driven access to care, automation in patient communications, expansion of ambient clinical intelligence, and growing use of digital therapeutics and surgical AI systems embedded directly into NHS workflows.
AI and access to care technologies
AI triage and GP booking tool: Rapid Health’s Smart Triage has been integrated into the NHS App, enabling over one million patients to book GP appointments 24/7. The system provides AI-led symptom triage and offers an average of 61 appointment slots, reducing waiting times from 11 days to 3 and significantly cutting GP administrative burden.
AI and long-term condition management
AI chronic disease management app: Aide Health is being rolled out across Warrington GP surgeries to support 55,000 patients with COPD, hypertension and obesity. The app delivers daily digital check-ins, medication support and early deterioration alerts to enable more proactive management between appointments and reduce avoidable NHS demand.
Patient engagement and contact centre automation
AI virtual assistant and patient portal: University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust has deployed Netcall’s AI Virtual Assistant and Patient Engagement Portal to automate patient queries and appointment management. The system has cut call wait times from over 30 minutes to under three, diverting 36% of calls to self-service, reducing abandonment rates by 75% and saving more than 266 hours of administrative time per week.
Patient flow and discharge optimisation
Digital patient flow platform: Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust is using Alcidion’s Miya Precision platform to improve discharge coordination across seven community hospitals. The system has reduced average length of stay by around five days by improving real-time visibility of discharge planning, bed availability and patient flow across services.
Outpatient and ambient AI documentation
Ambient AI outpatient module: Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust is the first NHS organisation to adopt System C’s CareFlow Ambient AI module. The system captures clinician-patient conversations and automatically generates clinic letters, outcome forms and clinical coding outputs, reducing administrative burden and improving outpatient workflow efficiency.
Cardiology imaging and interventional systems
Angiography X-ray system: Gloucestershire Royal Hospital has installed Canon Medical’s Alphenix Core+ system to support high-volume cardiac services. The technology enhances imaging clarity at low radiation doses, improves operator ergonomics and supports complex interventions including pacing and angiography across three cath labs.
Digital therapeutics and community physiotherapy
Digital MSK physiotherapy platform: NHS Shetland has extended its Phio digital physiotherapy service following strong pilot results, which showed 75% of patients required no further MSK treatment. The platform enables remote assessment and self-management, improving access to physiotherapy in rural and island communities, with around half of usage outside traditional clinic hours.
Mental health digital platforms
Digital wound assessment tool: Minuteful for Wound, provided by Precision HealthTech, is being used by community nurses at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to support faster identification of wound deterioration. The AI-enabled smartphone app has been used in over 3,500 assessments for around 400 patients, creating secure, trackable wound records and reducing the need for in-person visits while enabling earlier intervention and more consistent clinical assessment.
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