The NHS 10-Year Health Plan for England sets an ambitious goal: a decade of transformation aimed at preventing illness, tailoring care, embracing digital solutions and maintaining financial sustainability. It's a tall order – more so at a time when the NHS is under funding pressure and political scrutiny. Sir Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, for example, has claimed the health service sees patients as an ‘inconvenience' and has ‘built mechanisms to keep them away'.

The solution? Unified, real-time data infrastructure to transform how the NHS operates. Such technology could help clinicians make faster, more informed decisions, enable integrated care pathways, reduce admin duplication and support predictive analytics that spot risks before illness develops or worsens. 

The data

It's easy to assume that modernising the NHS simply means more digitalisation to enable predictive analytics, artificial intelligence and reduce paperwork. But these alone will only scratch the surface. Without unified data infrastructure, even the smartest technologies can't deliver their full potential and operate as a coherent ecosystem.

This infrastructure should act as the NHS's nervous system – essential to how every part functions – allowing data to flow securely and efficiently between hospitals, GP practices, community services and social care. This should be underpinned by clear governance that ensures security, privacy and accountability.

Such a goal echoes the intentions behind the NHS SPINE, which was established in 2004 as the central repository component of the National Programme for IT. But while the infrastructure has been useful in connecting thousands of services and enabling secure access to millions of records, the scale of today's digital ambition requires something even more sophisticated and far-reaching.

When health leaders unlock data, the results can be transformative for all stakeholders. Patients can navigate smoothly through the system, experience fewer delays and gain greater confidence in their health service. Clinicians are empowered to provide enhanced care with the right information at their fingertips when they need it. Administrative and managerial efficiency improves dramatically as high-volume letter mailing and costly, time-consuming admin work are reduced or eliminated. Managers gain a whole-system view enabling smarter resource planning and allocation.

Yet healthcare data often finds itself siloed, inaccessible to patients and difficult for staff to use effectively and efficiently. The result: duplication, inefficiency and frustration. So, where to start? 

The infrastructure

The ideal centralised data infrastructure would comprise three essential layers: a shared data foundation, a distribution and orchestration layer for real-time synchronisation, and a secure interface layer for consistent access. 

While it may be tempting to ‘rip and replace' and start from scratch, many useful platforms and digital assets already exist across the NHS and elsewhere, awaiting better coordination and integration. As such, any new technology or workflow must be able to work with the NHS' existing systems. The right infrastructure should draw on open standards to align with what already exists and any future technology. 

At Netcompany, we follow the principle of ‘re-use, don't rebuild'. Drawing on years of project delivery across thousands of programmes, we've learned many technical components – such as error handling, caching, APIs and transaction management – can be standardised and re-used across domains. This enables new systems to be deployed more rapidly, reliably and cost effectively. The same philosophy applies to healthcare data infrastructure: by identifying and re-using proven components across NHS systems, we can drive greater consistency and efficiency, removing the need for each NHS trust to build solutions from scratch.

The proof 

The path to reducing duplication, lowering costs and unlocking public sector data starts by learning from those who've done it well. Across Europe, Netcompany has delivered platforms that show what a unified approach can achieve. 

In Scandinavia, we helped Norway's national medicines platform drive secure multi-agency data sharing. And in Denmark, the Mit.dk mailbox service provides a ‘digital bridge' between government, businesses and citizens. Launched in 2022, 3.2m users (representing more than half the Danish population), can respond to messages from public institutions and private companies, pay bills, update personal information across multiple services and digitally sign documents – all without leaving the mailbox. This also includes the use of Sundhed.dk, a platform on which Danes can communicate with healthcare professionals and find information on health services.

In Greece, we implemented an integrated hospital information system that manages 1.8m patient records across 14 hospitals, 9,500 users and 7,830 beds. This includes the biggest general hospitals of Athens, two university hospitals, two oncology centres and two paediatric hospitals.

For an outside-the-box case study, look to Copenhagen Airport, where Netcompany's AIRHART platform enabled an increase in maximum annual capacity from 30m to 40m passengers – a 30% uplift without building new physical infrastructure. The same orchestration technology can be applied to transport systems, manufacturing and hospitals.

At Netcompany, we call this responsible digitalisation. Taking tried-and-tested solutions, adapting them to local needs and delivering rapid, measurable and sustainable value. With the vision of the 10-Year Plan, the NHS has the chance to adopt proven European platforms at speed, while still allowing flexibility for ICSs to tailor services. 

The new approach

The next step is crucial: to prioritise the smart application of trusted technologies and scalable platforms across care pathways. The only way for the NHS to achieve the goals of the 10-Year Plan is for ICBs, ICSs, ALBs and the DHSC to all work with unified, co-ordinated data that enables consistent quality and measurable impact.

Rapid deployment of proven digital infrastructure, supported by top-down leadership and local empowerment, can reduce variation, break down silos and ensure every patient experiences seamless, joined-up care. 

Partnerships with technology providers should focus on improving the patient experience, alleviating administrative burden and generating operational efficiency – freeing clinicians to spend more time on care.

This is the power of unified real-time infrastructure in a complex, high-stakes operational environment. 

The NHS should be bold: unify its data, rethink how decisions are made and build a smarter, responsive health system fit for the future. In doing so, the NHS can become the preventative, personalised and digitally enabled service we need it to be. Visit: https://netcompany.com/nhs-providers/