On Wednesday, UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a record £29 billion funding boost aimed at ‘getting the NHS back on its feet and fit for the future.’
The new investment includes up to £10 billion on technology and digital transformation, GP training to deliver millions more appointments and rolling out mental health support to all schools.
Reeves told the House of Commons: “There’s no strong economy without a strong NHS.”
What does the investment mean for healthcare AI and cybersecurity?
Two experts have their say.
Afshin Attari, Director of Public Sector at Exponential-e
The Government’s additional funding for NHS digitisation is a much-needed step forward.
The £10bn of investment in NHS technology and digital transformation projects by 2028/29 – representing a 50 per cent rise in technology spend in 2025/26 – signals a strong commitment to innovation and future readiness.
However, the flow of funds needs to be accelerated, and underlying programmes need to be prioritised as delayed approvals and decision making will negate the anticipated benefits, notably with the recent announcement around the change of NHS England as a governing authority.
Also, with this progress comes an urgent and parallel responsibility – we must ensure our defences are just as strong as our ambitions.
With the shift from analogue to digital, healthcare systems are becoming increasingly vulnerable.
The NHS serves 1.6 million people daily and any cyberattack, system failure or data breach can have far-reaching consequences, not only for productivity, but for patient safety and public trust.
As threats become more advanced, we must treat healthcare not just as a public service, but as critical national infrastructure.
Other sectors, like defence and finance, already benefit from stringent cybersecurity standards and government-backed resilience frameworks. Healthcare deserves the same.
Threat intelligence sharing, mandatory testing, and robust governance should be baseline, not optional. Innovation must be underpinned by protection.
Without securing the foundations, we risk building new systems on unstable ground.
As we move forward, digital transformation must go hand in hand with resilience – because in healthcare, the stakes are simply too high.”
Peter Corpe, Industry Leader, UK Public Sector at Appian
“The Spending Review set out high hopes for a ‘Renewed Britain’ but didn’t offer much guidance on where the 50 per cent increase in tech spend for the NHS would go.
However, it does reaffirm the Government’s commitment to increasing the use of technology as one of the core pillars of the NHS 10-Year Plan – a crucial opportunity to plug gaps in outdated and clunky processes, driven by legacy technology.
It’s likely that the anticipated and imminent Plan will shed light on where this spend will land.
There has already been enthusiasm from the Government towards ‘unleashing’ AI as a solution to public sector efficiency, backed by the announcement for a £2bn allocation to support the government’s AI Opportunities Plan.
The NHS 10-Year Plan will need to be specific about the tools it will use, training that will be provided and the potential challenges that it will have for healthcare staff.
Ultimately, we need a strategy that puts AI in the heart of NHS operations.
AI must be embedded into well-designed processes to ensure it delivers real benefits. Its effectiveness depends on the quality of the data it receives and how well we act on its insights.
If we aren’t prepared to act on its findings quickly, we create bottlenecks instead of breakthroughs.
Without the right groundwork, we risk producing more noise instead of economic value.
AI will fail and cost the taxpayer if we don’t get this right.
