Spending Review 2025: A defining moment for digital health and government

On the face of it, this week’s Spending Review (11 June 2025) delivers a clear message: digital transformation isn’t just a pillar of healthcare, it’s a priority across government, and it’s being backed with record levels of investment.

1. Record-breaking investment in tech

• A headline £10 billion is earmarked specifically for NHS technology and digital initiatives, making it a historic commitment.

• That represents, roughly, a 50% increase in the NHS tech budget over the SR period

2. Ambitious digital ambitions

• Funds will be used to transform core systems: scaling up the NHS App as the “digital front door,” establishing a unified patient record, boosting telemedicine and real-time care models, and embedding AI across pathways

3. £1.9 billion for wider digital government

• Alongside NHS-specific spend, the government also announced £1.9 billion to accelerate digital programmes across departments.

• This includes civil registration, digital identity, GOV.UK platform upgrades, and joined-up services for people and businesses.

• It signals a unified push to digitise core public services, health, local government, and Whitehall, together.

3. Is it enough? Caveats lie ahead

• Independent analysis suggests the NHS needs around £21 billion over five years solely to digitise health and social care effectively

• So, while the commitment is welcome, successful rollout will depend on robust transformation, project delivery, and change management, beyond the headline figure.

4. Opportunity meets risk

• The King’s Fund highlights welcome strategic alignment (analogue‑to‑digital, prevention, community care), but warns the NHS must translate funding into tangible change, balancing tech investment with workforce and service reforms

• Lessons from past NHS IT programmes underlines that funding without delivery leads to failure.

Channel 3 Verdict

It’s fantastic to see growing recognition that technology and digital must be fully at the heart of the future of health and care, with record investment now promised to help deliver it. But technology on its own will not deliver improved outcomes for those receiving care and those delivering it without a real focus on how we use this technology to transform the way care is delivered on the ground. Huge investment has already delivered significant new technologies across the health and care system without unlocking significant improvements in patient flow and productivity.

The additional investment across the NHS needs to be seen as a real catalyst for how it can now really shift the model of care and support from hospital to community. The risk is it helps to plug the challenging gaps across acute care rather than drive new models of care and support at home. It is critical that the 10-year plan sets out what can be done now, next and in the future to accelerate this move including:

• Ensuring integrated records and reduced bureaucracy now through fully embedding shared care records, optimising existing electronic patient records and fully reducing the reliance on paper and transcription of clinical visits through admin automation

• Investing in integrated neighbourhood teams to help roll out remote monitoring at scale to reduce the flow into hospitals and other acute settings and support a move to a more proactive, preventative model

• Transforming models of care and support in acute settings to continue the focus on hospital to home, including radically transforming the outpatient delivery model to free up clinical capacity and flow.

We’re genuinely encouraged by the scale of investment, but a clear vision and pathway for how this investment will shift the model of care and support is needed to ensure this funding really shifts the dial.

At Channel 3, we have developed a blueprint for health and care, shaped through co-production with NHS and social care leaders and grounded in real delivery experience. It’s focused on the future we want to create, and the practical steps to get there: today, tomorrow and in the longer term. This new funding must be seen as a vehicle to deliver a new models of care now. Without a clear vision, and with immediate budget pressures facing local systems and ICBs, the risk is that this opportunity will be lost.

Our take: this is a pivotal moment. But success demands purpose-led change, and that’s where Channel 3 comes in.

We’ll be sharing exclusive insights over the coming months, including a strategic guide to help leaders translate this investment into meaningful change.

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Let’s turn investment into impact. Together.

Written by Leo Jones, Chief Executive, and Joe McGarry, Executive Partner, Channel 3 Consulting.