10 Nov 2022

Introduction to the New Hospital Programme

techUK’s briefing on the New Hospital Programme (NHP) welcomed Matt Gardner, Head of Digital Transformation, and Sarah Thomas, Digital Director.

Matt and Sarah presented to techUK members on plans to deliver 48 new hospitals by 2030, a joint venture between the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the NHS. This is a transformation programme that aims to support the NHS to deliver healthcare suitable for the future.

The NHP has 4 main objectives:

  1. Building national capacity
  2. Achieving high quality and sustainable care
  3. Creating intelligent hospitals
  4. Delivering a better, faster, and sustainable legacy

Matt and Sarah stressed that a business-as-usual approach will not suffice, and that the Programme would need to ask more of the market than its current capacity, requiring the adoption of new methods and approaches.

It was great to hear the intention to capitalise on the ‘wave of innovation’ in healthcare delivery, and the recognition that digital sits at the centre of this Programme. techUK has long called for digital to be recognised as foundational, rather than the ‘bolt on’ to the wider hospital system it has often been viewed as.

Likewise, techUK often emphasise the importance of joined up working across different NHS programmes, and it was fantastic to see the number of existing workstreams that will be feeding in to NHP, including frontline digitisation, digitising adult social care, digital pathology, and others.

Following 5 key principles, the NHP team want to “define, deliver and optimise the Intelligent Hospital of the future, for the NHS”. These principles are digitally empowered patients, interoperable and intelligent systems, digitally enabled staff, hospitals without walls supporting integrated care, and smart building.

This session will serve as a springboard for more detailed engagement going forward. If you would like to find out more about techUK’s work with NHS England, please contact a member of the team below.

You can watch the full recording from the event below:


Alex Lawrence

Alex Lawrence

Head of Health and Social Care, techUK

Robert Walker

Robert Walker

Programme Manager, Health and Social Care, techUK

Clara Hewitt

Clara Hewitt

Programme Manager, Health and Social Care, techUK

Tracy Modha

Team Assistant - Markets, techUK