From March 24–25, Digital Health Rewired 2026 turned the NEC Birmingham into the control room of the NHS’s next big move.
With 3,500 attendees, 300 speakers, and over 100 sessions, this year’s tone marked a hard pivot from high-level policy to operational delivery.
One message echoed: implement, scale, and stop digitising paper.
The great left shift: Money follows the patient
The big idea at Rewired 2026 was the “left shift”: moving care out of hospitals and into the community.
Alec Price-Forbes, NHS England‘s National CCIO, confirmed a major funding change. For years, 95% of digital investment went to hospitals. Now, new funding will focus on community care.
In fact, internal guidance says 50% of the £2.5 bn frontline productivity programme will go to community settings.
Price-Forbes urged the NHS to abandon “pockets of excellence” and build consistent national standards. His blunt advice: stop digitising outdated paper processes and redesign services “strategically and purposefully.”
The NHS App gets a brain (and a reality check)
The NHS App is getting a serious upgrade. It is being reimagined as a proactive, AI-powered health companion.
NHS leaders unveiled a three-year plan to evolve the NHS App from a transactional front door into a proactive “personalised health companion.”
Rachel Hope, Director of Digital Prevention Services, showcased an AI-powered triage prototype to help users assess risks and navigate unplanned care.
Other upcoming features:
- At-home testing: HPV and HIV kits.
- Navigation overhaul: Simpler layouts and “native functionality.”
- Workforce integrations: Staff vaccination status and patient consent views.
But the Health Foundation offered a reality check: only 35% of people in casual work or unemployed would trust an AI health assistant, compared to 49% of the general public.
The digital divide is still a real and urgent problem.
AI hype met hard truth at Digital Health Rewired 2026
Even though AI dominated the agenda, senior experts issued strong warnings.
Dr Joe Zhang of the London AI Centre called current parts of AI research snake oil—tested only on training data. Models that work in theory, but not in real care settings.
Dr Jessica Morley from Yale argued that many “hypey promises” are impossible to deliver. She advised to focus on smaller, more practical wins and not flashy moonshot AI.
Nicola Millard of BT Group coined the term “automated mansplaining.” AI confidently making things up/getting things wrong. She also warned against clinicians losing basic skills by outsourcing their thinking to machines.
AI isn’t the solution. When applied well, it’s a tool. When applied poorly, it’s a risk.
Legacy systems and lost memory
Speakers were brutally honest about what’s blocking progress.
Hassan Chaudhury from DATA-CAN pointed to a damaging “loss of organisational memory” caused by constant NHS reorganisations, plus a lack of “intellectual honesty” about old tech holding things back.
On interoperability, Andy Meiner from OpenEHR UK said
Many patient records are digital but unusable in practice. Just messy PDF graveyards.
Adam Coons of Bridgehead Software suggested using AI to turn those PDFs into searchable, useful documents.
Meanwhile, leaders pushed for a Single Patient Record. Experts, including Dr Lia Ali, Professor Jacqui Cooper, and Dr Katherine Buxton, argued that joined-up data platforms are the only way to end fragmentation.
Cyber resilience: No analogue fallback, no excuse
Cybersecurity is no longer IT’s problem. It’s now the core healthcare infrastructure.
Mike Fell, Executive Director of National Cyber Operations at NHS, insisted that “cyber resilience” is central to the 10-year plan.
Every system must be able to switch back from digital to analogue during an outage.
Michelle Corrigan of the Digital Care Hub warned that community care greatly increases the number of potential cyber attack points. More endpoints, more vulnerabilities.
Danny Roberts, CIO at East Cheshire NHS Trust, shared lessons from a shared EPR (electronic patient record) with Mid Cheshire Hospitals. Live from June 2025, they will remain in an “optimisation phase” until June 2026. His key message:
“Go-live is the start, not the finish.”
A workforce reset is underway
A major policy shift came from Martin Dennys, Deputy Director for the Digital Profession at the NHS. He announced that senior digital health professionals (at Band 7 and above) will now require registration with FEDIP.
This will bring digital health roles in line with doctors, nurses and financial staff—with accountability, ethics and standards.
Dr Jennifer Dixon from the Health Foundation pointed out a major gap. The training deficiency. Medical schools still teach using paper, and junior doctors graduate without AI skills.
She also argued that clinicians must lead on AI, not politicians or tech companies.
From humanoid robots to newborn genomics
Beyond policy and infrastructure, Rewired still delivered on innovation.
Dr Oya Celiktutan showcased humanoid robots supporting assisted living.
Jenna Cusworth-Bolger shared progress on the Genomics England Generation Study:
- 52,000 newborns enrolled (target: 100,000)
- 128 babies identified with treatable conditions
That’s the promise of genomics: intervening before symptoms even appear.
Pitchfest 2026
Eight startups took the stage at Pitchfest, each tackling a different piece of healthcare transformation:
- Daye (HPV diagnostics)
- Astron Health (precision oncology)
- Cogniss (no-code infrastructure)
- Into-Action.Health (CVD prevention)
- Jigsaw Medical (AI clinical coding)
- LightHearted AI (cardiovascular diagnostics)
- Mavis Technologies (AI smart glasses)
- Upskill.Health (VR/AI staff training)
Winner: Daye
Led by Valentina Milanova, the company’s at-home HPV diagnostic tampon stood out for its innovation and impact.
Her takeaway:
Women’s health is finally being built with both clinical depth and digital sophistication.
Wrapping up
Closing the event, Helen Balsdon, NHS’s National Clinical Director of Innovation, challenged leaders to be braver, openly sharing project outcomes and adopting a “fail fast, learn, and move on” culture.
The technology is genuinely exciting. But our key lesson from Rewired 2026 was this: success depends on local empowerment, clinical leadership, and relentless focus on people and process redesign.
-By Alkama Sohail and the AHT Team.
