The NHS does not lack ambition.
It lacks consistent operational foundations at the scale required to turn ambition into delivery.
NHS Shared Business Services has brought together senior leaders from across health, government, policy and industry to explore how the NHS can deliver the government’s three major shifts: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.
Through a series of roundtable discussions, we gathered insights on the operational, financial and technological capabilities needed to deliver lasting reform. Those insights have shaped our report, Futureproofing the NHS: The Case for Transforming Corporate Services for Innovation and Productivity.
Together, these findings point to a clear conclusion: achieving the NHS’s ambitions will depend not only on clinical transformation, but also on stronger operational infrastructure. The NHS does not lack ambition. It lacks the consistent systems, processes and support needed to turn ambition into delivery.
This paper sets out both the case for change and a practical roadmap for delivering it.
“Organisational collaborations are key.
Sharing services, functions and processes does not
mean a loss of local identity or local control;
it creates the time and the headroom to prioritise resources
to where they can make the biggest difference to patient care.”
Chief Executive, Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber
Key insights
Through a series of discussions with leaders from across the NHS, government, policy and industry, several consistent themes emerged. Together, they highlight the operational challenges and opportunities that will shape the NHS’s ability to deliver its long-term ambitions.
Operational foundations matter
Delivering the NHS’s ambitions will depend on strong operational foundations across finance, procurement, payroll, workforce and digital services, not clinical transformation alone.
Shared services create capacity
Sharing common operational functions can reduce duplication, improve consistency and free leaders to focus on patient care and local priorities.
Technology must solve real problems
Digital investment delivers the greatest value when organisations first understand the problem, redesign processes and engage staff in the change.
Better data enables better decisions
Workforce, finance and procurement data can provide earlier insights into emerging pressures, helping organisations act before problems affect patient care.
Collaboration drives productivity
Participants highlighted the importance of shared platforms, common standards and collaborative governance to support system-wide improvement.
Proven approaches already exist
Examples from across the NHS demonstrate that automation, shared services and data-driven decision-making can improve productivity and release valuable capacity for frontline care.
Our Recommendations
Drawing on these conversations, expert insight, alongside independent research and operational experience, we identified a series of practical recommendations to help create the operational foundations needed to support innovation, productivity and long-term reform across the NHS.
Strategic operational infrastructure
Recognise corporate services as critical enablers of NHS performance and invest in them as strategic assets.
Long-term investment
Support operational transformation with sustained funding, implementation support and organisational capacity.
Process before technology
Understand challenges, redesign processes and engage staff before introducing new technology.
Scale proven solutions
Extend successful shared service models and avoid duplicating solutions across organisations.
Data-driven decision making
Use workforce, finance and procurement data to identify pressures earlier and support better planning.
Collaboration by design
Create governance and delivery models that make collaboration simpler and more effective across the NHS.
“There is a need, now more than ever,
for providers to work in partnership with commissioners
to identify recurrent savings at the system level.”
Sir Julian Hartley, Chief Executive, NHS Providers
Explore the Futureproofing the NHS programme
Discover the research, expert insights and recommendations that emerged from our roundtable series. Explore the full analysis, thought leadership articles and resources examining the operational foundations needed to support innovation, productivity and long-term NHS reform.
