Invest a Billion for a Ten Billion Return

IMS MAXIMSOpinion Article by Shane Tickell, Chief Executive, IMS MAXIMS
Recently, the Sunday papers and politics programmes were dominated by what the BBC called "a £1.8 billion cash-boost for the NHS."

From this we had learned that £850 million of this will pay for the "20 hospital upgrades" that Boris Johnson promised as he entered Number 10 Downing Street for the first time. But we had also learned that questions were being asked about the cash.

The prime minister implied that people will see the results quickly when, in fact, it will take five years to spend this moneyon a mix of repairs, new wards, and reconfiguration projects.

Think-tanks argued the NHS would need £6 billion just to catch up on backlog maintenance, and £10 billion to run a full-scale capital programme.

They also asked whether the money can be counted as new money, when it has been generated by savings on other parts of the NHS budget that had previously been clawed back by the Treasury.

Any money is welcome, but it won't go far

I don't think these are the right questions. This money may not be new, and it may not go far, but any money for the NHS is welcome.

Around £23 million is going to Wye Valley NHS Trust, which is one of our customers; and I know the 72 beds it will pay for in Hereford will make a huge difference to local people.

Instead, I think we should ask why the same investment is not being made in NHS technology.

That's partly because we all know that renovated or new buildings will not be used effectively unless they have the right staff, infrastructure and IT systems.

However, it's more than that. A recent report by Ernst and Young estimated that if they could be consolidated into a single, longitudinal data set, the NHS’ 55 million patient records could be worth around £10 billion a year.

The report, 'Realising the value of health care data: a framework for the future', calculates that half this sum is the market value that this data would have if the NHS was a commercial organisation.

The other half, though, would be delivered to patients in the form of operational savings for the health and care system, better outcomes, and "the generation of wider economic benefits to the UK."

EPRs generate return on investment

A couple of years ago, we ran our own benefits realisation project. So many organisations were asking us how they could afford to invest in electronic patient records that we used an independent analyst model to calculate the cash and efficiency savings that a 'typical' district general hospital could expect to generate.

The answer came out at £104.34 million, through a combination of increased capacity in urgent and emergency care, increased capacity on wards, and better use of staff time.

The model suggested that significant numbers of staff days could be saved just by reducing the time taken transcribing notes, handing over from one team to another, and carrying out nursing assessments.

As we know, e-observations are also linked to significant improvements in patient outcomes, when they are linked to the automatic calculation of early warning scores and tools to get help, quickly, for patients at risk of deterioration.

So, that part of the Ernst and Young report feels right; and we shouldn’t overlook its third point. Investing in British health tech companies could deliver a significant return to what another Conservative prime minister used to call UK Plc.

Over past few years, a lot of the money that we have seen put into NHS IT has gone to large, often US companies. I’d like to see some of that cash invested in support for British small and medium sized enterprises that can then use any opportunities that are generated by Brexit to export globally.

Creating a British, health tech unicorn sector

Whenever the idea of investing in NHS IT is put forward, we are told that it would be pointless, because we blew £12 billion on the National Programme and got nothing for it. I can understand the caution, but things have moved on.

The NHS has moved on. Technology has moved on. Our understanding of the leadership and engagement required to make a success of health tech deployments has moved on. Also, I’m not proposing a £12 billion programme.

In Silicon Valley, a start-up worth $1 billion is known as a 'unicorn' and what I am proposing is that the government should make a unicorn-level of investment in indigenous health tech. If we assume that it should be possible to deliver a 1:10 return on investment, that £1 billion would generate £10 billion.

That is £10 billion that we could invest in a proper NHS capital programme. Or in the kind of prevention initiatives that would deliver the healthier workforce we need to address the challenges posed by an ageing population and to generate the tax revenues that we need for other government priorities, from education to defence.

So, that's my question. Any money for the NHS is welcome. This money will make a difference. But why spend a relatively small sum patching up a few hospitals, when we could invest in health tech, generate money that could be spent strategically, and support British businesses into the bargain?

Most Popular Now

Philips Foundation 2024 Annual Report: E…

Marking its tenth anniversary, Philips Foundation released its 2024 Annual Report, highlighting a year in which the Philips Foundation helped provide access to quality healthcare for 46.5 million people around...

Giving Doctors an AI-Powered Head Start …

Detection of melanoma and a range of other skin diseases will be faster and more accurate with a new artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool that analyses multiple imaging types simultaneously...

Scientists Argue for More FDA Oversight …

An agile, transparent, and ethics-driven oversight system is needed for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to balance innovation with patient safety when it comes to artificial intelligence-driven medical...

New AI Transforms Radiology with Speed, …

A first-of-its-kind generative AI system, developed in-house at Northwestern Medicine, is revolutionizing radiology - boosting productivity, identifying life-threatening conditions in milliseconds and offering a breakthrough solution to the global radiologist...

AI Agents for Oncology

Clinical decision-making in oncology is challenging and requires the analysis of various data types - from medical imaging and genetic information to patient records and treatment guidelines. To effectively support...

Start-ups in the Spotlight at MEDICA 202…

17 - 20 November 2025, Düsseldorf, Germany. MEDICA, the leading international trade fair and platform for healthcare innovations, will once again confirm its position as the world's number one hotspot for...

AI Medical Receptionist Modernizing Doct…

A virtual medical receptionist named "Cassie," developed through research at Texas A&M University, is transforming the way patients interact with health care providers. Cassie is a digital-human assistant created by Humanate...

AI Detects Hidden Heart Disease Using Ex…

Mass General Brigham researchers have developed a new AI tool in collaboration with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to probe through previously collected CT scans and identify...

Using Data and AI to Create Better Healt…

Academic medical centers could transform patient care by adopting principles from learning health systems principles, according to researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of California, San Diego. In...

Human-AI Collectives Make the Most Accur…

Diagnostic errors are among the most serious problems in everyday medical practice. AI systems - especially large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT-4, Gemini, or Claude 3 - offer new ways...

AI Tool Set to Transform Characterisatio…

A multinational team of researchers, co-led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, has developed and tested a new AI tool to better characterise the diversity of individual cells within...

Highland Marketing Announced as Official…

Highland Marketing has been named, for the second year running, the official communications partner for HETT Show 2025, the UK's leading digital health conference and exhibition. Taking place 7-8 October...