With additional funding for NHS technology announced in the Autumn Budget, the growing prominence of AI in healthcare, and the 10-year health plan gathering pace, anticipation is building across the digital health sector as we move into 2026.

Digital Health News asked health tech suppliers to share their takes on what they believe 2026 will bring.

Read on for their predictions and expectations for the year ahead:

Shaun O’Hanlon, chief executive, Optum (UK)

“Technology will be the engine driving delivery of the NHS 10 year health plan, enabling care to move beyond hospital walls through interoperability, care coordination, and data-driven patient pathways.

“We’ll see a revolution in diagnostics and elective care, with intelligent, out-of-hospital pathways tackling waiting lists at their source in a more patient-centric and cost-conscious way.

“Community pharmacies will increasingly function as local health hubs, integrated into care pathways and empowering independent prescriber pharmacists to help balance demand.

“Underpinning all of this will be next-generation AI — safer, transparent, and supported by strong governance and human oversight — driving productivity and better patient outcomes. 2026 will see technology delivering measurable impact, reshaping care delivery at scale.”

Steve Wightman, managing director, health and integrated care, Access HSC

“We need to see the 10 year health plan translated into real-world action in 2026. Digital and data, when done right, can genuinely supercharge healthcare professionals – reducing unwarranted variation, freeing up time for direct patient care and tackling waiting lists.

“Increased deployment of tech-enabled care, ethical AI and predictive analytics – underpinned by real interoperability – will put prevention-focused care firmly into neighbourhood settings.

“However, the real breakthrough will be in mental health services. As the government pushes for better data utilisation across the NHS – including for research purposes – and with the new review into mental health diagnosis, we should see a step change in integrated care, clinical trials and research projects, which in turn, should help trusts offer patients faster access to better-suited treatments.”

Dr Rachael Grimaldi, co-founder and chief Medical Officer, CardMedic 

“As we move into 2026, I’m hopeful we’ll see the NHS’s 10 year health plan translate into meaningful action on the ground. The gap between innovation and implementation must finally close.

“We’ve proven that digital-first solutions like seamless interpreter access and accessible communication tools work, but too often they remain isolated successes rather than system-wide standards.

“What excites me most is the potential for integrated care systems (ICSs) to lead the charge in embedding equity-focused technologies across entire regions, moving beyond pilots to genuine transformation.

What excites me most is the potential for integrated care systems to lead the charge in embedding equity-focused technologies across entire regions

“The challenge will be whether procurement processes can keep pace with clinical need, and whether we can maintain focus on patient-centred innovation rather than getting distracted by technology for technology’s sake.

“If 2026 can be the year where proven solutions scale rapidly and collaboration between innovators, clinicians and NHS infrastructure becomes the norm rather than the exception, we’ll finally see the breakthrough in equitable care that patients deserve.”

“In 2026, we’ll see a decisive shift towards an online NHS. Patients want easier access to their care through consistent and connected platforms, and next year our healthcare services will finally see the benefit of significant investment here.

“But the success of this rollout will be dependent on having the right digital tools in place to connect patients and clinicians seamlessly. The challenge as I see it now will be in scaling the technology from one clinician’s innovation to improving productivity and patient outcomes across the NHS.

Mark Hutchinson, executive vice president, Altera Digital Health (UK and EMEA) 

“With core digital capabilities for many now in place, trusts will focus on optimisation and innovation by unlocking greater value from their systems and exploring new digital tools to transform patient care pathways and improve productivity.

“This next stage of evolution will be characterised by a focus on strong digital foundations, and user-centred functionality, which will enable trusts to innovate safely, sustainably, and at scale.

“Optimisation will become a catalyst for innovation with these foundations in place, and the path to a more resilient, patient-centred, and future-ready NHS will become increasingly within reach.

“A key enabler of this progress will be a flexible, modular approach, allowing trusts to evolve at their own pace and introduce new digital capabilities gradually, improving efficiency and without disrupting broader operations, working towards the delivery of the 10 year health plan.”

Brian Murray, sales director UK and Ireland, Better 

“2026 will be characterised by the maturing of open digital platforms. The shift towards neighbourhood health centres and community-based care is driving demand for vendor-neutral, standards-based infrastructure, with openEHR establishing itself as the cornerstone of this transformation.

“We are approaching an inflection point where reusable, structured data and true interoperability are transitioning from strategic aspirations to operational requirements.

“AI will continue its evolution from experimental technology to practical clinical decision support, but its utility will be fundamentally dependent upon the quality and structure of underlying data.

The shift towards neighbourhood health centres and community-based care is driving demand for vendor-neutral, standards-based infrastructure

“Organisations that invest strategically in clean, structured, and reusable clinical data models will realise significant benefits in patient safety, diagnostic accuracy, and clinical adoption.

“The single patient record remains a national strategic imperative. Developing this capability through federated shared care records, enabled by interoperable APIs, represents the only sustainable architectural approach.

“Better clinical data repository methodology, enabling a longitudinal, cross-setting patient record, aligns directly with the NHS 10 year health plan.

“Finally, given persistent workforce constraints, the NHS will increasingly prioritise technologies that deliver measurable efficiency gains and genuinely reduce the administrative burden on clinical staff.

“The ability to deploy reusable clinical content rapidly across care settings will become critical in supporting workforce sustainability and enabling clinicians to focus on direct patient care.”

Markus Bolton, chief executive, Graphnet Health

“2026 will be the year the NHS’s left shift becomes more tangible, with more care delivered safely closer to home and earlier visibility of risk becoming the norm.

“Digital health records will be central to this, giving teams unified insight across services and underpinning a more integrated approach to care. Population health analytics will guide where resources are focused, helping systems spot emerging need earlier and intervene before people reach crisis.

“Remote monitoring will mature into a core part of long-term condition management, especially when it is integrated into the same platforms and workflows staff already use.

“The organisations that make the most progress will be those redesigning pathways around prevention rather than digitising existing pressure points.”

“Imaging will be the pressure point in 2026. Pervasive workforce shortages and capacity challenges means it is an imperative to make imaging faster, more connected, and more intelligent.

“AI will accelerate this transformation in part, but only if NHS systems and networks can confidently embrace fast-paced and at-scale deployment, learning from regions that have already excelled.

“But real progress goes beyond sprinkling algorithms into radiologists’ workflows, especially at a time when diagnostic modernisation will be the make-or-break factor in NHS reform.

“This demands a step change in diagnostic maturity, inter-disciplinary connectivity, and a willingness to modernise the underlying platforms that bind everything together.

“The UK is already seeing impact where integrated diagnostics has been adopted in earnest: productivity jumps, clinical collaboration strengthens, and patient pathways speed up. In 2026, the organisations that break remaining silos will be the ones that move the needle.”

Sharon Hanley, director of primary care, X-on Health 

“Neighbourhood models in 2026 offer the NHS a real opportunity to integrate primary care around the needs of local communities.

“But this can only be achieved with strong shared infrastructure, clear referral routes, and consistent communication that makes sense to patients and staff alike.

“If these foundations aren’t in place, the model risks creating uncertainty rather than improving access and coordinated care.”

Graham Watson, executive chair, InnoScot Health 

“I believe that 2026 will be a fascinating time for healthcare innovation – a year when much greater decisive action will be in evidence.

“If 2025 saw a degree of watching and waiting to see how things would play out, then provided the risk of an AI bubble burst does not materialise, 2026 will witness more would-be digital health adopters getting off the fence and committing.

I believe 2026 will be defined by the patient being enabled to take much greater control over their own healthcare

“Digitally enabled healthcare has been promised as the default mode of access for most patients and next year the pressure to start delivering it and moving with wider societal progress will be significant.

“This will be further mobilised by sheer economic necessity, by anxiety around other countries extending their lead in many areas, and technological progress now being able to facilitate ideas that previously weren’t possible to realise.

“Fundamentally, I believe 2026 will be defined by the patient being enabled to take much greater control over their own healthcare. Choice and autonomy will be everything, and it will be granted to many more.”

Dr Harry Thirkettle, director of health innovation, Aire Logic 

“The big story for 2026 isn’t which AI model is cleverest – it’s whether the NHS is actually ready to use it. Most trusts have an EPR, but too many are still using them as expensive digital filing cabinets.

“To get real value from AI, we need clean data architecture, proper information governance, and safety cases that reflect how AI behaves.

“AI readiness is about building the organisational capacity to commission, evaluate and iterate these tools safely. As AI becomes a standard feature of the EPR itself, standalone point solutions will struggle to compete.

“Readiness isn’t just a question for hospitals. As we shift more care into community and home settings through virtual wards and digital therapeutics, neighbourhood health services need to be part of that AI-ready infrastructure too.

“The most promising tools are the ones stitched into full care pathways that support real workflows at a local level. That means confronting equity head-on.

“We can’t build services that only work for the digitally confident. Commissioners should be asking for data on who these tools don’t reach so that we can build systems people can actually trust.”

Dr Rahul Goyal, lead clinical executive, Elsevier

“In 2026, AI will play a significant role in digital health; streamlining clinical decision-making, freeing clinicians from repetitive tasks and providing more patient-focused care.

“However, as adoption surges, confidence in AI will hinge on robust governance, transparency, and ethical frameworks to safeguard integrity and trust.

“The latest insights underscore this need, with 48% of clinicians using AI for work (nearly double the 26% reported in the previous year), while only 30% feel adequately trained, highlighting a critical gap in skills and oversight.

“The future of digital health will be defined not just by speed of AI integration, but by how responsibly and equitably it is implemented to ensure both clinicians and patients can place their trust in it.”

Paul Wye, head of AI, Answer Digital

“With such a heavy focus from government on AI and AVT – plus additional cash injections for tech from the Budget – 2026 should be the year we finally see meaningful scale.

“And with it, greater post-market surveillance. Radiology is an area with the biggest potential gains for frontline care, from reducing clinicians’ time taking/reviewing notes to automating first-stage grading of disease.

The NHS App will continue to be one of the hottest topics as functionality grows to become the patient’s ‘digital front door”

“The NHS Online Hospital will also be a big focus. It has huge potential to modernise non-elective care and close the gap between consumer expectations around convenience and reality.

“In the same vein, the NHS App will continue to be one of the hottest topics as functionality grows to become the patient’s ‘digital front door”.

Ric Thompson, senior vice president, OneAdvanced

“2026 will be the year digital transformation stops being a promise and becomes a measurable operational shift. The NHS has already invested heavily in digitisation; the next step is turning those digital foundations into real, system-wide productivity gains.

“AI will move out of the lab and into everyday workflows — automating clinical admin, accelerating triage, and reducing the friction points that slow down care.

“For this to work, AI has to be supported directly in the flow of work, surfacing at the moment clinicians need it rather than as yet another separate system to log into.

“But the defining trend won’t be AI itself; it will be the ability of organisations to integrate these tools safely, consistently and at scale.

“We’ll also see a stronger move towards platform-based thinking. Trusts, primary care networks and ICSs will increasingly look for interoperable solutions rather than standalone systems, creating a more seamless experience for clinicians and patients.

“The winners in 2026 will be those who combine robust data governance with practical, frontline impact — freeing capacity, shortening pathways, and giving clinicians time back. Again, the organisations that embed AI in the real workflow — not at the edges — will see the greatest gains.

“Ultimately, success next year will be measured not by digital adoption, but by the tangible difference it makes to workload, access, and patient outcomes.”

Gary McAllister, chief technology officer – healthcare and public sector, Dell Technologies

“My predictions for 2026 are that there will be continued change and financial fatigue across the service.  The reorganisation will continue to distract management and operational teams from the transformation goal – focusing resources on people rather technological change. 

“It is important that a cohesive and digitally enabled target operating model and strategy is established for the NHS, and clarity is given as to what and how the targets, goals and outcomes will be achieved – and funded.

“Technically I think we will see the introduction of robots and a drive towards consolidated infrastructure and technology. 

“Trusts will continue to adopt or drive efficiencies from their existing EHR solutions whilst introducing AI technology into diagnostic and operational workflows – evidence of benefits realisation aligned to funding for these solutions will continue to be a challenge for leadership. 

“Data will become core to all organisational workflows, and reform, and more investment will be made in data solutions to drive change, optimisation and measurement. This may see an increase in localised data solutions rather than national platforms.

“We are likely to start to see trials and pilots of humanoid robotic and automated screening in community settings, taking the lead from the far East.  These solutions will enable citizens to leverage the latest and greatest in screening against the CORE 20 plus 5 framework, reducing the need to see GPs in some situations. 

“At home solutions will also begin to monitor some chronic disease beginning the shift towards ‘Care Traffic Control’ services – working towards automated referrals. 

“The MHRA will continue to transform the drug and treatment approval pathway, enabling enhanced delivery of technology into care settings – this will enable more point of care access to innovation.

“It is unlikely we will see anything revolutionary in the next year due to the political and organisational challenges across the NHS.  The NHS will need to focus on service stabilisation nationally before a real focus on transformation is possible.”

Lydia Rawlings, executive director, NEC Health

“Working closely with NHS partners this year has highlighted how important it is to have stronger data infrastructure models and clearer routes to real-world insights – to connect clinical, operational and outcomes data and underpin NHS decision-making across screening, referral, treatment and procurement.

“Government commitments such as regional secure data environments and the federated data platform show real intent to strengthen the foundations in 2026.

“With it, hopefully there will be a shift to more partnerships between the NHS and academia, life sciences and data specialists, to enable the generation of evidence at scale rather than through isolated programmes — and, ultimately, a move from ‘pilot-itis’ to sustained, system-wide practice.”

Samantha Fay, chief executive, SiSU Health

“As we look to 2026, the NHS is rightly shifting toward a prevention-first, data-led model of care. The 10 year health plan and the NHS medium term planning framework both signal a future where strategic commissioning, digital access, and personalised prevention become core to how health is delivered.

The NHS is rightly shifting toward a prevention-first, data-led model of care

“We expect to see integrated care boards accelerating evidence-based prioritisation, pooling resources around shared prevention goals, and demanding clearer demonstrable impact from digital partners.

“We hope that 2026 will be the year prevention shifts from ambition to accountable delivery.”

Phil Bottle, managing director, SARD

“2026 is the year the NHS stops pretending job planning is about filling rota boxes and starts admitting it’s about understanding demand.

“AI will surface every hidden capacity gap, every bit of phantom work, and make the old ways impossible to defend.

“Digital becomes the lever for redesigning teams, not monitoring them. The trusts that thrive will treat workforce optimisation as core infrastructure, not a side project.”

Karen Swinson, clinical lead, RLDatix

“In 2026, health and social care will lean more heavily into predictive workforce analytics and will seek AI models grounded in real operational data as leaders take action to deliver transformation, including change demanded by national policies, such as the 10 year health plan.

“As the pressure on waiting lists intensifies, organisations will prioritise tools that provide a clearer picture of workforce behaviour across nursing and medical teams, from patterns in rostering and job planning to indicators of staff experience and absence.

“Platforms that combine day-to-day operational usage with robust data and insight will be increasingly valued for their ability to forecast staffing needs, support professional judgement and unlock clinical capacity more sustainably.”

Matt Moore, sales director – healthcare and local government, Rackspace Technology

“The priority for the NHS in 2026 should be to tackle technical debt and lay the foundations for long-term digital transformation. We expect to see an increase in multi-trust projects and a shift in cyber security from pure prevention to cyber resilience, enabling rapid recovery after incidents.

“Public cloud will remain important, but it’s not right for every workload, especially those involving sensitive patient data, and cost optimisation will be a key driver in choosing the right platform.

We expect to see a shift in cyber security from pure prevention to cyber resilience, enabling rapid recovery after incidents

“We believe digital and data sovereignty is non-negotiable for the NHS; it’s essential to maintain control over where data resides and how it’s managed.

“The focus now is on building secure, scalable, and cost-efficient environments that are ready for AI and future innovation.”

Kultar Garcha, NHS GP and chief medical officer, Flow Neuroscience

“As someone focused on mental health, we spend a lot of time debating how digital and community-based care should evolve – but I’m not convinced 2026 will deliver. Innovation will continue, but the gap between ambition and lived experience will widen.

“Expect more remote consults, AI triage and app-based support in the name of access and convenience, while inclusion lags. Without addressing poverty, housing, work insecurity and loneliness, prevalence won’t shift.

Innovation will continue, but the gap between ambition and lived experience will widen

“Community hubs are the right idea, but without workforce, joined-up support and sustained funding, many may become signposting stations. And the £300m will buy platforms far faster than skills or outcomes. If 2026 is to mean something, we need to measure what matters to patients.”

Siim Saare, founder and chief executive, Lifeyear

“In 2026, cardiovascular care will undergo a major shift toward proactive, digitally enabled management as health systems respond to record cardiac demand and workforce shortages.

“Remote pathways will start moving from simple monitoring to full remote patient management, supported by digital tools that enable early risk detection, personalised interventions, and streamlined clinical workload.

“A major push toward neighbourhood health will drive new models of multidisciplinary care across acute, community, and primary care teams, enabled by a shared digital infrastructure.”

Nadine Carey-Whitehead, commercial director, Insource

“In 2026, success won’t be about who has the smartest AI, it will be about who has the smartest approach to data that can be relied on. Automating parts of the patient journey only works when clinicians can trust the information in front of them.

“Right now, too much of the NHS is still battling fragmented, siloed datasets that undermine both innovation and operational performance.

“The organisations that break that cycle, those that build a single, interoperable source of truth across their systems, will be the ones that actually deliver intelligent, patient-centred care at scale.”

Shravan Govindaraj, product marketing manager, XP Power

“In 2026, the transition of critical medical technologies, including surgical robotics, AI diagnostics, and portable/wearable devices to core healthcare infrastructure, brings unprecedented demands for reliable power.

“These high-stakes systems require more than just uptime; they demand absolute precision, safety, and operational resilience. While healthcare organisations seek technology that improves clinical decision-making, this isn’t possible without a foundation of stable, high-quality power.

“Performance, stability, and reliability are no longer differentiators; they are the required minimum for complex care. The manufacturers who engineer power solutions for these intense power demands will ultimately enable the next generation of healthcare devices.

Roy Wills, vice president and head of healthcare business and partnerships, Intellias

“The biggest shift in 2026 won’t be a breakthrough algorithm. It will be the moment when AI stops being a pilot activity and becomes part of the operational backbone of healthcare.

“For years, providers have deployed AI in narrow pockets: an ambient scribe here, a coding tool there, throughput pilots in one unit but not another, or chatbots helping with call centre overflow.

“In 2026, the economics no longer support this fragmented approach. Labour shortages, wage inflation, and tighter margins will force providers to rethink how work gets done, not just how new tech gets tested. 

2026 is when AI transitions from a set of experiments to a critical layer of infrastructure

Dr Sonia Szamocki, founder and chief executive, 32Co

“I think we’ll see rapid AI adoption in our healthcare settings, both hospitals and local providers. The rise of the AI-powered ‘scribes’ in primary care and Emergency Departments will help tackle clinical burnout.

“This will move from pilot to core infrastructure, supported by new NHS contracts and an accelerated regulatory framework for the specific use-case.

“2026 will be an exciting time for healthcare research. With drug discovery and clinical trials being made more efficient with AI, I expect to see the approval of potentially life saving products coming sooner.

“Wes Streeting’s 10 year health plan will continue to take shape. I’m hoping that pressure will ease on hospitals as caregiving is redistributed away from hospitals and back to local areas, with the help of remote patient monitoring and virtual wards.

“I’d like to see an extension of the NHS’ advice and guidance scheme empowering GPs to treat more patients without the need for referrals.”