The improvements are expected to deliver around half of the commitments in the government's 10-Year Health Plan and generate £41bn in total benefits over the next decade.
Health and social care secretary, James Murray, said: ‘As the NHS marks 78 years of serving patients, this investment shows how we can build on that proud legacy by embracing the technologies that will shape its future.'
Other plans include NHS App users being able join online appointments with expert clinicians across England using the NHS's new virtual hospital service – NHS Online.
Patients will also be able to use the NHS App to request follow-up appointments after treatment, and NHS-approved digital tools will help them manage exercise and rehabilitation for common lung and heart conditions – giving patients more control of their healthcare.
The NHS will also introduce a Single Patient Record to provide specialists across the NHS with a full picture of a patient's medical history, roll out new digital tools to help staff manage urgent and planned patient care more effectively, and enhance cyber security to protect patient data and NHS systems.
More than 500,000 NHS staff are also being given access to Microsoft Copilot after a trial led to workers cutting the amount of time they spent on admin by an average of two days every month.
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Pritesh Mistry, fellow at The King's Fund, said: ‘The success of these plans will depend just as much on the people as on the technology itself. Staff need the time, training, and leadership support to adopt new ways of working, and services need to be redesigned around patients, not simply digitising existing processes. Digital maturity across the NHS is highly variable which means a risk of uneven benefits for patients depending on their location, getting the foundations right and reducing variation are just as important as implementing cutting edge technology. Funding needs to create the capacity to change not just pay for the technology, as we've seen in the past.'
Sir Ciarán Devane, chief executive of the NHS Alliance, said: ‘The key issue is how the £10bin investment will translate into practical support and funding for NHS leaders to deliver and scale up these programmes locally.
‘There should be a general principle of maximising the discretion of local leaders to invest in the technologies and solutions that make most sense for their local populations and communities.
‘Heath leaders need clarity too on which elements will be mandatory for adoption and what expectations will be placed on organisations.'
Sir Ciarán Devane, chief executive of the NHS Alliance, said: ‘The key issue is how the £10bin investment will translate into practical support and funding for NHS leaders to deliver and scale up these programmes locally.
‘There should be a general principle of maximising the discretion of local leaders to invest in the technologies and solutions that make most sense for their local populations and communities.
‘Heath leaders need clarity too on which elements will be mandatory for adoption and what expectations will be placed on organisations.'
