NHSE awards £45m contract to advance preventative healthcare

Digital technology firm Kainos, alongside a consortium of smaller companies, has secured a contract to strengthen NHS digital capabilities for preventative healthcare in England. 

The award through NHS England’s Digital Prevention Service Portfolio (DPSP), worth around £45m to £68m, will improve access to vaccinations and screenings through the NHS App and accelerate the delivery of personalised healthcare in line with the 10 year health plan.  

Kainos will work with Public Digital, Baringa, Healthia, Helix Centre, Scroll and Ethos, for up to three years to scale the Digital NHS health check service, enabling citizens to complete health assessments and receive tailored advice at home. 

Daniel Kemp, healthcare director at Kainos, said: “We have a long history of supporting both NHS England and the NHS Digital Prevention Service, and we’re proud to be extending our partnership to advance this important shift towards proactive, preventative care. 

“By scaling digital health checks, extending access to vaccinations and screenings, and embedding preventative support into everyday NHS care pathways, we are helping the NHS to deliver more personalised and accessible care, reduce pressure on frontline services, and improve health outcomes across the country.” 

The contract covers delivery of major cross-cutting initiatives within the prevention portfolio, such as the vaccinations and screening clinical record, vaccinations digital services and personalised prevention services.

It will include the launch of new digital resources to support self-care, including mental health tools, weight management support, and diabetes risk reduction pathways.  

Kainos and its partners will work as part of blended NHSE product teams, providing engineering, user-centred design, and data expertise to continuously iterate and improve these live services, while also supporting the development of the wider DPSP strategy and prioritisation framework. 

The programme is intended to improve uptake and early detection by providing citizens with a clear view of their vaccination and screening status through the NHS App and enhancing national vaccination data flows and services to support more efficient rollout, better uptake and reduced inequalities. 

Speaking at the Healthcare Excellence through Technology Conference in October 2025, Rachel Hope, director of digital prevention services at NHSE, said: “When we think about treatment, we’re talking about a finite group of people who are ill, but prevention is about the entire population.

“To reach everyone, we need digital services that empower people to interact directly and get the support they need to stay well.”

The NHS 10 year health plan, published on 3 July 2025, supports the ambition to make at-home testing and health checks more accessible to help shift care from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.