Tech to save time: how the NHS can realise the benefits (The Health Foundation, 24 February 2025)

Summary

This study from the Health Foundation investigates the challenges of using tech to free up time, including the reasons technology can have no or negative impact on staff time, and provide recommendations to better realise the benefits of healthcare technologies. 

Content

Key points

• With the NHS under unprecedented pressure, there is a strong focus on the potential for technology to support NHS staff and free up their time. However, the NHS often faces challenges in fully realising the benefits technology can offer.
• Drawing on the Health Foundation’s own research and a rapid evidence review by The Evidence Centre, this analysis explores situations where health technologies have had no or negative impact on staff time and investigates why. This includes analysis of a sample of 467 studies published between 2010 and 2023 that looked at whether technologies saved health care staff time, and further detailed analysis of a subset of 144 of these where technology had no or negative impact on staff time. (It should be noted that just because a technology had no or negative impact on staff time does not imply it was unsuccessful overall, given the many possible reasons for introducing a technology.)
• The analysis challenges the assumption that the procurement of technology will automatically lead to benefits such as freeing up staff time or improving care. It highlights that programmes to rollout technologies instead require greater focus on implementation and optimisation.
• When looking at the impact of different types of technology on staff time, the results are generally mixed – with some instances of the technology successfully saving staff time and others where it has failed to do so. This highlights that whether or not a technology generates time savings depends on how it is implemented and used.
• Among different types of technology, there was variation in the proportion of studies that found time savings – potentially suggesting that some technologies may have more complex implementation challenges than others. For example, while 85% of the 27 studies of computerised decision support showed time savings, only 52% of the 31 studies of robotic surgery showed time savings.
• In the studies, the main reasons technology had a negative impact on staff time related to workflow and task efficiency (for example, staff needing to do extra tasks or spend more time doing usual tasks); usability and skill (for example, the technology being difficult to use or a lack of training); and the wider context in which the technology was being implemented (for example, staff preferences or buy-in).

These findings highlight several important lessons, with implications for policymakers and those leading the rollout of technologies in the NHS:

• Successful technology implementation requires funding and support. In order to increase the likelihood that health care technology will be effective, health policy needs to evolve from a focus on procurement to a focus on implementation and optimisation. It is critical that policymakers and system leaders fund the change, not just the tech.
• Successful implementation requires designing new uses of technology in consultation with staff and patients. By engaging staff and patients, the NHS can ensure technologies address local needs, integrate them effectively into workflows and build confidence and trust among those expected to use them. A flexible approach to adoption will be needed that avoids a one-size-fits-all blueprint.
• Greater emphasis is needed on optimising the use of existing technologies to deliver their maximum value. Initiatives that focus on reducing the time lag involved in realising the benefits of health technologies could help bring near-term productivity gains – with most of the technologies likely to have an impact over the next few years already in use in the NHS.