The state of UK digital health, 2026

Digital health in England is running at two speeds in 2026. Patients are using the NHS App more than ever. The systems behind it, in hospitals, in community services and in the data that links them, are moving more slowly. For providers and health tech firms, most of the risk and most of the opportunity sit in that gap.

This briefing uses the latest official statistics available in October 2026, mostly for NHS England. Where the data is experimental or incomplete, we say so.

The front door is open, and busy

At the end of August 2026, 39.1 million people were registered for the NHS App, up 8% on a year earlier. For scale, England has about 63.7 million GP-registered patients. Sign-ups are slowing, with 270,851 new registrations in August, 5% fewer than in August 2025.

Use is rising much faster. The app recorded 78.2 million login sessions in August, up 44% year on year. 15.5 million different people logged in during the month, up 27%, and 28.7 million used it at least once in the 12 months to August.

The core transactions are performing well. Patients ordered 7.6 million repeat prescriptions through the app in August, up 27%. Messages delivered to patients reached 36.5 million, up 61%, which shows providers adopting the app as a channel as much as it shows patient demand.

What this means: the app has moved past the reach phase into the depth phase. From here, growth will come from what people can do in it rather than from how many people have it, and that puts the pressure on the services behind it. The 10 Year Health Plan, published in July 2025, says that by 2028 the app will be a full front door to the entire NHS. Prescription tracking shows the distance still to cover: by the end of August 2026 it was live in 3,264 pharmacy sites, 31% of the total.

General practice has shifted, but not far

Of the 29.8 million appointments recorded in general practice in August 2026, 59.9% were face to face. A year earlier the figure was 62.8%. Online consultation tools are now part of routine access, with 9.5 million patient submissions recorded in July 2026, 6.1 million of them clinical. These are official statistics in development, and data from several suppliers was incomplete, so this is best read as a minimum.

What this means: demand already arrives digitally. The limit now is triage, workflow and clinical capacity, not the online form at the front.

Records: nearly complete is not the same as joined up

In a letter dated August 2026, DHSC said 93% of secondary care trusts have an electronic patient record, and that £1.9bn has been invested since 2022 in digital foundations, including EPR rollout. The same letter repeats an earlier expectation that 96% of trusts would have an EPR by March 2026, a date that has now passed.

Coverage does not mean records are shared. The letter was a reply to a coroner’s concern that staff could not see records held by other organisations. The government’s answer is a single patient record, which DHSC says will start going live from 2028, beginning with maternity care.

What this means: for suppliers, the next few years in secondary care are about optimising, integrating and consolidating EPRs, with few new EPR sales. Any product that relies on clean, shared data should plan for fragmented data until at least the end of the decade.

Virtual wards: proven in winter, flat on capacity

In September 2026 England had 12,336 virtual ward beds, against 12,522 a year earlier and 12,825 in March 2025. Occupancy follows the seasons. It reached 90% in January 2026, when 11,474 patients were on a virtual ward, and fell to 69% in September 2026. NHS England classes these figures as management information, and they are snapshot counts.

What this means: when demand peaks, the virtual ward model is used, but capacity is not growing. Remote monitoring suppliers are competing for a flat market. They will win by showing admissions avoided and staff time released, trust by trust, rather than by relying on a national expansion programme.

Money and the route to market

The June 2025 Spending Review committed up to £10 billion to NHS technology and digital transformation by 2028-29, an increase of almost 50% on 2025-26. That is the clearest statement of intent in years. Trust leaders still name money as the main constraint. In NHS Providers’ 2024 digital transformation survey, 73% cited funding and financial constraints as a top barrier, ahead of operational pressures (50%) and inadequate infrastructure such as poor wi-fi, old computers and multiple log-ins (38%).

Getting through assurance has become a little easier. NHS England’s updated Digital Technology Assessment Criteria form has 25% fewer questions, and buyers and suppliers were expected to have fully moved to it by 6 April 2026. DTAC remains the baseline that any supplier to the NHS has to meet.

What has moved, and what has not

Some things have clearly moved: NHS App use, digital messaging, digital access to general practice and EPR coverage. Others have not: virtual ward capacity, data sharing between organisations, and digital budgets at trust level. The single patient record is still at least two years away. The national investment is real, but much of it has yet to reach the front line.

What to do next

Providers should make sure the services behind the app can handle the demand it now creates, with messaging, booking and record access that work end to end. Health tech firms will find the market rewards products that fit what already exists, meaning the NHS App, the main EPRs and local data platforms, backed by evidence of capacity or cash savings at trust level. Minshall Group helps providers and health tech companies with UK market entry, data and digital delivery, if a second view on the evidence would help.