The autumn budget confirmed £300m in investment into new NHS technologies to improve patient services and the creation of 250 neighbourhood health centres.
The release has sparked both enthusiasm and concern from digital service consultants, construction firms and law professionals.
Consultant Connect, which provides telemedicine services to 45 million NHS patients, finds that the launch of the neighbourhood health centres is bold and overdue.
"Bringing GPs, diagnostics, community services and mental health support together under one roof is exactly the kind of reform the NHS needs to serve patients more effectively in the community,” said Kat James, Managing Director of Consultant Connect.
Funding for online hospital and the end of PSTN
8x8, a cloud-based communication service, applauded the investments included in the budget to give patients more control over their care with digital tools, such as funding for NHS to set up an “online hospital.”
The model of care would allow patients to digitally connect with clinicians anywhere in England, even to receive specialist care.
The online hospital is expected to launch in 2027.
“The UK government recently announced a NHS 'online hospital' plan to help cut down on waitlists, which will involve a massive expansion of the NHS app,” said Maxine Eunson, Head of Public Sector at 8x8. “Of course, with any project of this size, there are questions around what it will take in order for this idea to become a successful reality.”
Eunson said that while the shift to putting hospitals online is a good one, one of the things that hospitals need to prepare for is the associated transition complications.
Using PFIs to build 250 neighbourhood health centres?
During the release of the budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced investments to build 250 new neighbourhood health service centres, which will be built by repurposing current estates and new buildings.
Out of the 250 new neighbourhood health service centres, 100 will be delivered by 2030 in Birmingham, Truro, Barrow-in-Furness, and Southall.
To deliver the centres, funding will come from the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme, which combines public investment and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP).
The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority and DHSC will develop a new model of PPP (public-private partnership) for healthcare builds. These new models aim to work out the kinks from previous private finance initiatives (PFIs).
“There are important lessons to be learned from previous PPP programmes… These had perceived drawbacks such as high transactional fees, long procurements, lack of flexibility and poor-value risk transfer, which will be important to address for the NHS to benefit,” said Carly Carton, Commercial Healthcare Partner at the UK and Ireland law firm Browne Jacobson.
The government released a budget document which provides an evidence base for using PPP programmes for the creation of neighbourhood health centres.
But Craigh Elder, Government and Infrastructure partner at Browne Jacobson, still finds that the PFI remit is too narrow.
“[It] feels like too narrow a remit when our existing schools, hospitals and prisons estate is in need of a major refresh,” said Elder. “If lessons on issues like transparency, flexibility and risk transfer can be learned on the perceived drawbacks of previous programmes such as PFI and PF2, partnerships between the state and investors remain a valuable tool in the Treasury’s armoury.”
Originally intended to deliver projects without increasing national debt, PFIs have also been criticised in the letter for higher long-term costs, inflexible contracts and burdening NHS trusts with decades of repayments.
A group of 40 Labour MPs recently wrote to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, urging her to scrap proposals to fund NHS infrastructure through PFIs entirely.
NHS investment to attract global innovation
The Chancellor pledged £4.9bn of efficiency savings will be reinvested into workforce and patient access, alongside the £300m tech fund.
But Gerard Hanratty, Head of Health and Life Sciences at Browne Jacobson, said for the NHS to thrive long-term, investment must flow in both directions.
“We need to help the NHS with its own self-care. The UK should be leveraging the NHS’s global reputation to attract inward investment, especially from MedTech and digital health innovators,” said Hanratty. “But overseas companies face too many regulatory and procurement hurdles.”
Hanratty urges that the NHS needs a unified ‘front door’ for suppliers and simpler approval pathways to turn innovation into impact.
Investments in technology already paying off
While national strategies evolve, some Trusts are already showing what modernised care looks like when you invest in technology.
A pilot at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, backed by Philips, demonstrates the power of extending capacity and using digital expertise differently.
Running from January to July 2025, the project used Philips Radiology Operations Command Centre technology to let senior radiographers support teams remotely, and open MRI scanning hours into the late evening.
The results showed that 1,356 additional patients were scanned, opening hours could be extended, radiographers were trained in less time and idle night-time capacity turned into patient value.
“Our pilot shows what’s possible when we scale what works: smarter data, digital tools and AI-enabled imaging supporting staff and getting patients answers faster,” said Mark Leftwich, Managing Director at Philips UKI.
Alliance Medical also leveraged Philips’ latest Radiology Operations Command Centre, to provide access to senior specialist support.