The NHS is set for a digital overhaul, with a greatly expanded app and new hospital league tables forming the centrepiece of the government’s 10-year health plan.
The updated NHS app will allow patients to self-refer, book appointments, receive AI-powered advice and access their medical records.
Ministers expect the changes to reduce the need for frontline staff by 2035, relying on efficiencies from automation and digital tools.
Health secretary Wes Streeting described the upgraded app as a “doctor in your pocket”, and said the reforms would bring NHS access in line with services already available in private healthcare.
He said: “The NHS app will become a doctor in your pocket, bringing our health service into the 21st century.
“Those who use private healthcare already get instant advice, remote consultations with a doctor and choice over their appointments.
“Our reforms will bring those services to every patient, regardless of their ability to pay.”
The government expects digital care to become routine, leading to a smaller NHS workforce than previously forecast. Some health leaders have described this as a “large bet” on technology.
By 2028, the app is expected to give access to a new single patient record containing test results, operations and outpatient visits.
AI will also be used to take notes during consultations and draft care plans, allowing clinicians to spend more time with patients.
Hospital league tables will be published for the first time this summer.
They will show data such as waiting times, patient ratings and clinical outcomes to help patients compare NHS trusts and choose where to receive treatment.
Prime minister Keir Starmer told NHS staff in east London: “Look at your phones, look at your apps – because what you see on that screen is that entire industries have reorganised around apps.
“Retail, transport, finance, weather – you name it. Why can’t we do that with health?”
“We will transform the NHS app so it becomes an indispensable part of life for everyone.
“It will become, as technology develops, like having a doctor in your pocket, providing you with 24-hour advice, seven days a week.”
The plan outlines three “radical shifts”: from analogue to digital services, from treatment to prevention, and from hospital-based to community-based care.
Future NHS care will, where possible, take place “as locally as it can; digitally by default; in a patient’s home if possible; in a neighbourhood health centre when needed; [and] in a hospital if necessary”, according to the plan.
Over the next few years, funding will be moved from hospitals to establish a network of new neighbourhood health centres offering diagnostics, mental health services and other forms of care.
However, the government has not confirmed how many will be built or when.
The plan has drawn a mixed response from health experts.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said: “Making significant progress to tackle hospital waiting lists while shifting the focus of the health service to prevent and better manage more care in the community is a tall order.”
She added: “The government is placing a large bet on technology and automation freeing up enough clinician time so that fewer frontline staff will be needed in the future.
“If that bet doesn’t pay off the NHS could face an even larger staffing crisis.”
The NHS budget is expected to rise by £29bn annually by 2029 compared with 2023–24, averaging 2.8 per cent annual growth from 2026 to 2029 – below the historical average of 3.7 per cent.
Thea Stein, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, said expanding digital services “could be a real gamechanger” but rejected suggestions that the NHS was at risk of collapse without radical reform.
She said satisfaction with NHS services has fallen to 21 per cent, but support for its founding principles remains “high and resilient”.
“We do not agree with the prophecy of extinction,” she added.
