Phillip Bland, global government advisor at Qualtrics, shares his view on how the NHS should approach its digital healthcare strategy.
The UK National Health Service (NHS) stands at a critical juncture. Public confidence in the healthcare system has rarely been more fragile as just one in five people in 2024 reported satisfaction with the way the NHS runs, the lowest result recorded since 1983. Despite this, public trust in healthcare professionals who deliver care remains very high, and belief in the NHS’ founding principles is staying strong.
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The UK government’s 10-Year Health Plan lays out an ambitious vision, putting digital transformation at its core with the goal of bringing the analogue health system into the digital age.
There’s no doubt the NHS possesses unparalleled scale and data that position it to lead digital healthcare transformation globally. However, this requires a human shift as well as a technical one. Success in helping the NHS realise its digital potential hinges on creating a strategy rooted in understanding the experiences of both patients and staff.
Re-instilling empathy across the NHS
The NHS is inherently an empathy-driven system, but it is currently grappling with a capacity and morale crisis which has built over time. Years of increased operational pressure, staff shortages, and varying local experiences have resulted in a system that is in danger of becoming disconnected from its mission of driving the delivery of safe and high-quality care.
The financial pressures and the trade-offs between budget constraints and quality of care are at the forefront of the issues. This ongoing strain contributes to change fatigue and impacts productivity. Leaders must prioritise reconnection with their workforce. Securing meaningful employee insights is crucial. Listening to the workforce, understanding what defines a “unified experience”, and then rebuilding the cultural foundations are necessary for empathy to thrive.
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By GlobalDataEmployee experience (EX) and the patient experience are deeply interconnected. If the workforce is not set up with the right structure and leaders fail to understand workforce issues, transformation will stall. Done well, the digital shift promises a better staff experience and higher productivity, which are vital for sustaining the NHS.
Digital transformation: a human readiness challenge
The NHS’s 10-Year Plan is clear about its digital intent, backed by a significant £10bn ($13.4bn) investment in the Spending Review. The Global Government Forum recently published its report, ‘A Fresh Mandate for Digital Leadership in the NHS’, which outlines the barriers to digital progress in the system and recommends strategies to drive transformation, as adoption remains uneven across the NHS. It highlights that working operations, professional pathways, and cultural attitudes across the public healthcare system have yet to fully catch up with the digital era. For instance, digital has often not been considered a key profession within the NHS.
To move forward, the NHS must treat digital progress as mission-critical to delivering safe, high-quality care. This means positioning digital as a central pillar of care delivery, with digital professionals recognised not merely as IT support, but as key enablers of the organisation’s broader ambitions. By elevating the role of digital talent and embedding digital capabilities across the NHS system, leaders can ensure that technology truly supports a positive staff and patient experiences rather than existing as an operational afterthought.
Trust boards and executives must understand and support this change so they can make sure the right processes are in place to empower healthcare professionals with the necessary skills to integrate digital solutions into their everyday routine. Democratising access to skills and tech will ensure the NHS doesn’t digitise the same mistakes and instead enables the organisation to move forward in the right way.
Active listening in the healthcare ecosystem
Leaders’ ambitions for technology are clear, but transformation frequently stalls when systems fail to capture and act effectively on the insights of the stakeholders using the technology. Traditional listening approaches often rely on post-transactional surveys, which typically only measure a limited set of touchpoints for patients or employees This overlooks a vast, untapped system of important interactions across the entire care and work journey. A holistic view is required to identify pain points occurring in dozens of patient and staff interactions – whether digital, over the phone, or in person.
This is where journey mapping becomes vital. For patients, the journey encompasses the entire sequence of care, from the initial need for care through scheduling, treatment, and continuous follow-up. For employees, it includes interactions with systems, processes, and leadership that shape their day-to-day experience. Visualising both end-to-end journeys means organisations can gain an outside-in perspective, and uncover inconsistencies and address gaps that traditional surveys overlook, for example issues with the patient portal, scheduling appointments or staff workflow and engagement.
This requires seamless data collection at all touchpoints. The key to enabling successful transformation in the NHS will then centre around using these insights to make sure the right processes are in place, the right skills are being prioritised, and both patients and employees feel as though their feedback drives specific actions and improvements.
The NHS possesses the necessary scale and data to define the future of digital healthcare. By prioritising the human elements – reconnecting the workforce, building digital capabilities, and using experience data to understand the entire patient and employee journey – leaders can ensure that the ambitious digital strategies set out in the 10-Year Health Plan deliver on the promise of shorter waits for patients, safer care, and a sustainable service for the next generation.
