Staff will have to ‘see more patients’ to justify tech funding

Services will have to change clinicians’ job plans to increase productivity, in order to receive national tech funding, an NHS England director has suggested.

Alex Crossley, NHS England director of transformation strategy, finance and delivery, said he would like the NHS to move to a model “where we are not going to invest nationally unless there is an implementation business change plan to partner the technology investment”.

Speaking at the HSJ Health and Care Intelligence Forum last week, Mr Crossley said that historically, the NHS has invested too much in technology that is “insufficiently well implemented” and “not embedded enough into operational reality on the ground”. “We need to focus much, much more heavily on getting the implementation right,” he said.

Mr Crossley said: “At the end of the day, we can put in all the [electronic patient record systems] we like, we can put in all the patient engagement portals we like, but if a clinician does not change their way of working to see more patients because they have had some time freed up, if their job plan is not adjusted and if we do not make all the other operational changes that you need to make, we have not achieved anything.”

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Source: HSJ, 30 June 2025