PRSB to relaunch in 2026 with new funding model

Exclusive: The Professional Records Standards Body (PRSB) will relaunch in 2026 with a revised funding model, after NHS England ceased its core funding this month. 

In September 2025, Digital Health News learned that the contract for the PRSB, a non-profit body dedicated to improving health records, would not be renewed when it ends in December 2025 because NHSE intends to develop and maintain clinical standards in-house.

At the time, the PRSB wrote to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to see if it would be willing to fund the organisation going forward.

Oliver Lake, chief executive of the PRSB, confirmed to Digital Health News on 5 December 2025 that the body “haven’t given up on trying to find government sources of funding”.

However, he said the PRSB is actively moving towards a “more market-supported model” involving funding from NHS technology suppliers who directly benefit from standards and data quality work.

“What we realised is that actually there’s other people that will benefit from our work, namely the suppliers in the market who are wanting to get things done and can’t get them done fast enough,” Lake said.

The PRSB works with more than 90 member organisations, including royal colleges, scientific societies and regulators, which do not pay fees, as well as more than 60 supplier partners, including major electronic patient record providers such as Epic and InterSystems, which pay for conformance testing and standards adoption.

Its 2026 it will introduce a programme of ‘accelerators’, designed to bring together suppliers, professionals and the NHS to work collaboratively on complex challenges and to build consensus using a robust evidence base.

An accelerator focused on the MedTech ecosystem will begin in January 2026, with a second accelerator focusing on AI and ambient voice technologies planned for later in the year, Lake confirmed.

“With seismic changes already happening—such as the use of ambient voice technology and huge investment into the Health Data Research Service —PRSB’s power is in bringing together suppliers, professionals, and the NHS to tackle data challenges,

“We’re taking the opportunity to leverage our networks and expertise for the benefit of the UK health and care sector.

“We are very much open for business and want to encourage any suppliers or organisations who care about data to approach us and see how we can help them.  Our work will be the cornerstone of success for all digital strategies,” Lake said.

He added that he would “like to see investment made in the data quality agenda” of the Health Data Research Service.

Professor Reecha Sofat, chair of PRSB, said: “Often the data required for care processes is incomplete and is not routinely semantically interoperable.

“Across the NHS and social care, duplicative data collection processes are commonplace —because the data in the patient record is not good enough.

“Additionally, clinical trials, disease registries and researchers require additional data collections because the clinical record does not capture industry-grade outcomes.

“AI and technologies such as ambient scribes need to populate data into the record in a standardised way—to make sure that it can be stored and shared safely.”

Digital Health News contacted NHSE for comment.