Public backs technology to improve NHS, says Tony Blair Institute

The majority of the UK public which is dissatisfied with the NHS see an opportunity for technology to improve its performance, according to a report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI).

Independent consultancy Deltapoll was commissioned by TBI to undertake a survey of UK voters’ views on the future of the NHS, including online interviews with a representative sample of 2,002 adults between 29 November 2024 and 2 December 2024.

Survey data show that out of the 44% of respondents who said they were dissatisfied with the NHS’ performance, 62% believed that technology exists which could improve the NHS.

Nearly 70% of respondents revealed that they are happy to share their anonymised data for a wide range of benefits, including to speed up and make better diagnoses, for research into new drugs and treatments, and help plan NHS delivery.

The polling comes ahead of NHS England’s 10 year health plan, expected to be published in spring 2025, which the Department of Health and Social Care said will include plans to bring together a single patient record, summarising patient health information, test results, and letters through the NHS App.

Discussing the survey results in an article on the TBI website, published on 10 January 2025, Charlotte Refsum, director of health policy at TBI, said: “The NHS App needs to stop being seen as an interesting add-on to the service and instead be viewed as the fulcrum of an entirely new NHS operating model.

“An all-singing, all-dancing app would also negate the need for individual hospitals to invest in the roll out of patient engagement portals and support the delivery of remote monitoring and long-term condition management.”

The publication of TBI’s survey follows the government’s plan to reform elective care, published on 6 January 2025, which includes a commitment to upgrade the NHS App to enable patients to choose providers, book appointments in more settings and receive test results, with the goal of reducing elective care waiting times to 18 weeks by March 2029.

However, polling results from the TBI survey show that only 35% of respondents have downloaded the NHS App and have used it to book appointments and access health records.

One in five (20%) respondents said that they have downloaded the app but have not used it, and 45% have not downloaded it or do not even know about it.

Digital Health News exclusively revealed in November 2024, that Refsum will be part of the data and technology enabling working group for the government’s 10 year health plan.

Refsum will also speak at Digital Health Rewired 2025, which takes place 18-19 March at the NEC in Birmingham, discussing how digital care records could enable integrated care and accelerate future health and care services.

In August 2024, TBI published a report, ‘Preparing the NHS for the AI era, a digital health record for every citizen‘, which called for a programme to create digital care records for all UK citizens within five years.