Earlier this month we submitted our response to the Change NHS consultation for the forthcoming 10 Year Health Plan for England, with our feedback specifically focused on primary care. We believe in the transformative power of well-deployed digital solutions to address the challenges facing primary care and to ensure that patient outcomes remain the driving force for innovation.
At Redmoor Health, we understand the challenges that NHS primary care faces every day. Since the business was established in 2017, we’ve been supporting front line digital transformation, leveraging over 350 years of combined sector experience across our team. This expertise has allowed us to support more than 1800 GP practices and PCNs across England in choosing, adopting and optimising technology to improve patient outcomes, streamline operations and support the workforce.
Primary care – particularly general practice – is one of the most digitally advanced parts of the NHS, with almost all patient consultations involving patient-facing and/or clinician-facing technology. But this entrepreneurial and innovative sector also grapples with unique challenges. Many GPs have to juggle business ownership (as partners) with healthcare contract delivery, which can create tension between the commercial reality of running a financially viable small business and retaining the broader whole healthcare system perspective.
Focusing on the Workforce
Meaningful healthcare transformation isn’t just about new technologies – it is as much, if not more, about empowering the workforce that uses them. Strengthening the primary care connections between patients, communities, and secondary care systems is essential for improving patient experience and overall population health. For example, a simple AI plugin we implemented across GP practice Facebook pages led to a 13% increase in breast cancer screening appointments in one region, highlighting how targeted, tech-driven strategies can deliver tangible outcomes.
Tackling Key Challenges
While the potential for technology in primary care is immense, several hurdles remain in the current market:
- Pooled Budgets and Prioritisation: Consolidated Integrated Care Board (ICB) budgets can lead to the prioritisation of the largest projects over the most impactful ones. Segmenting budgets to enable some focus specifically on primary care’s needs can unlock transformative potential.
- Procurement Frameworks: Simplifying new market entrance and procurement processes, whilst focusing on outcomes rather than specifications, can foster a dynamic, accessible market for innovation. This also ensures suppliers and commissioners can be jointly held accountable for in-life contract performance.
- Inconsistent Adoption: Variability in technology adoption across primary care providers is slowing down progress. Incentivising innovation spread by rewarding adoption can aim to address this disparity and accelerate transformation. In most cases, adoption trumps innovation.
Looking ahead
Primary care has always had the opportunity to drive whole system improvements across the NHS, given the volume and frequency of patient interactions. With the right support and leadership, general practice can harness its entrepreneurial spirit and digital expertise to deliver consistent, scalable benefits.
At Redmoor Health, we’re passionate about partnering with NHS England, ICBs, and primary care providers to unlock this potential.
Blog by Matt Murphy
Matt has been leading technology-driven businesses for over 15 years, with a proven track record of impressive growth, scaling up and strategy execution. 10 of those years have been in healthcare, most notably with EMIS Group where Matt held a number of executive board level positions. Matt started the EMIS IQ primary care data analytics division in 2011, and as MD of EMIS Health from 2014 to 2017 oversaw the latter stages of the migration to EMIS Web and the successful expansion into community, child health and mental health.nd execution of the next phase of the growth strategy, with partnerships and people at the heart.
