Can tech rescue the NHS?

Drones delivering blood, virtual wards, video appointments with GPSs... Barry Collins investigates whether tech can lift the NHS out of its current crisis

- Barry Collins

That the NHS is in an unprecedented crisis will come as news to nobody. Leaving aside any political debate over what got us here, the raw data paints an unquestionably bleak picture.

More than 7 million people are now on waiting lists for treatment, up from 4.5 million at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and from 2.5 million in 2010. The percentage of potential cancer patients seeing a consultant within a fortnight of GP referral has fallen to 80%, well below the 93% target. More than 50,000 people had a wait in excess of 12 hours in A&E departments in December, a figure that was in the hundreds only four years ago. Despite the phenomenal efforts of the medical professionals, NHS performance has nose-dived.

Can technology help pull it out of freefall? Not by itself; the NHS’s problems are too severe, too complicated for silver-bullet solutions. But a combination of new technologies promises to help alleviate some of the strain on the health service, helping medics to cut waiting times, clear much-needed hospital beds and reduce the demand on overworked GPs.

We’ve spoken to professionals who have been implementing tech solutions to some of the NHS’s biggest problems to find out why there’s still hope of resuscitating the ailing health service.

Drone deliveries