As many will be aware the long awaited 10 year plan for the NHS was published on the 3rd July 2025, and as anticipated it’s already proving controversial. 

Some healthcare leaders believe the changes are radical, intended to remodel the NHS and secure its future both in a financial setting and on a patient satisfaction front. Others are less satisfied, with notable opinions being that the changes don’t go far enough, don’t provide enough specifics on how these goals are to be achieved and that some plans will be taking the NHS in the wrong direction.

One thing was clear: change is needed.

“Over the past 8 months, we have spoken to thousands of staff and members of the public and considered the 250,000 contributions to the Change.NHS website. The conclusion was clear: no one defends the status quo.” 

Page 8, ‘Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’

We at Inform People want to use this opportunity to comb through just a couple of the various points outlined within the plan and share just how crucial a part ‘productivity data’ will play in the outcomes outlined. 

This data needs to be captured easily and as it happens, quickly accessible in reports and most importantly it must all be recorded in the same way in every department nationally so it can be consistently compared. Any technology embraced to achieve this should be cost effective in both time and money so that it does not negate the potential benefits – THRIVE is well placed to achieve this. 

The NHS needs a clear picture of what is actually taking place in its hospitals without layers of bureaucracy where data is reconfigured and recompiled via layers of reporting that slow down data clarity and where there are opportunities for interference and the potential to reformat and massage results. A tool like THRIVE where senior admins can see the data in live reporting, straight from the source, gives clarity at every stage. 

A devolved and diverse NHS: a new operating model

“Our reforms will push power out to places, providers and patients”

Page 12, ‘Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’

Highlights of the above section include: 

• • Combine NHS and Department of Health and Social Care – resulting in 50% headcount cuts.

• • Make ICBs the strategic commissioners of local healthcare services and build ICB capability.

• • Earned autonomy – rewards for high-performing trusts and a new failure regime for those underperforming.

• • Higher standards for leaders with pay linked to performance and good work rewarded.

• • Continued use of private sector capacity

• • Patient Power Payments Trial

The message from this chapter clearly displays a focus on performance and rewarding those that they want to be leading the NHS while stripping away power from those doing it a disservice. This comes to many as a welcomed mindset. 

While the NHS may be in the public sector, it cannot be seen as immune to the consequences of poor management. With this, however, comes a big question: how are these targets going to be measured? 

The first step must be to set specific targets for every provider to achieve at a minimum, and secondly, future targets to aim for as an improvement. Yet questions begin to arise over data quality. Whenever money and data begin to clash it is vital that the data is being gathered from a reliable source that is free from tampering. It is also becoming clear that if there is a need for centralised decisions and actions – an opportunity for THRIVE to pull data together from ICB leads and take actions. 

If every provider is going to be asked to source their own data then it must be ensured that the data is being recorded and reported on in the same way at all locations. No provider should have the ability or option to alter recording practices in such a way that may artificially improve their data without making any real performance improvements.

Independence and autonomy are being rightly celebrated, however this should not be about separation from the whole but about becoming beacons of knowledge where innovation and best practice are noticed, celebrated and incorporated into the wider NHS provision. Making expertise available for all (not detaching from the system) and encouraging departments to make decisions that make a difference – not being so beholden to tradition that nothing can change or improve. 

THRIVE is an independent tool designed to measure productivity and performs regular audits on the data being created to identify any potential outliers (which would be flagged with the ICB if discovered), to ensure that when comparing data from site to site we are facilitating, to put it colloquially, comparing apples with apples and not with oranges.

Additionally, it is essential to note the ongoing utilisation of private sector capacity. This capacity comes at a premium cost, so the NHS needs to be certain it is getting value for money if engaging with private sector providers, and that private sector contractors are recording their data in the same ways as providers in the NHS. THRIVE can ensure this and also highlight any concerns quickly with the right people so that can be addressed with expedience.

A new transparency and quality of care

“We will make the NHS the most transparent healthcare system in the world.”

Page 13, ‘Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’

Highlights from this section include: 

• • Publish easy-to-understand league tables, starting this summer, that rank providers against key quality indicators

• • Flexibility to make additional financial payments to high performing clinical teams

• • Persistent poor quality care should result in termination of services. No matter the setting or the provider. 

Again, this needs to be backed up by solid evidence.

Here, the NHS will face the same problems; how is the required data gathered at a high and accurate level? How will data be consistent without putting extra pressure on already stretched teams? With this chapter the NHS will also be required to do something it has been historically poor at – overcome data silos to share best practice (and failures) so that everyone can learn and improve together. These new plans require the sharing of data to the public on a national level, when in their current states many providers struggle to get data like DMO1 figures together in a reasonable timeframe. Collecting this data will need to be done in one of two ways: additional administration staff or use of technologies to compile this data into easier formats.

Given that many providers have been instructed to reduce administrative staff head count by up to 50% this leaves only one option, and that is to use technologies like THRIVE to produce this information instead.

Something that seemingly goes under the radar within this section is the speed at which providers will be expected to produce this data. The NHS needs this data in a timely manner and should ideally have access to all this information in real time. Some data requests will be passed from hand to hand and ultimately take months to acquire, which is too long. Given providers can see tens of thousands of patients a month if an issue arises the NHS needs to know immediately to be able to act accordingly, decisively and quickly before the issue worsens. 

Expecting this additional data to come through current channels in a timely manner with any level of accuracy and without further investment in performance monitoring technologies is unrealistic. Case Studies will also be required to support this 10 year plan and some existing THRIVE users are using the system already to monitor and share successes with SOPs to accelerate positive outcomes at scale. So, technological investment, if THRIVE is embraced, is priced very fairly and certainly would cost less than additional administrative staff whilst producing tangible benefits.

An NHS workforce, fit for the future

“The NHS will be not only the country’s biggest employer but it’s best.”

Page 14, ‘Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’

Highlights include: 

• • Give leaders and managers the power to undertake meaningful performance appraisals and reward high performing staff, plus act decisively with underperforming staff

• • Reduce the NHS’ sickness rates from its current rate of 5.1%

• • Pay rewards for high performance and pay withheld from executive leaderships who do not meet public, taxpayer and patient expectations on timeliness of care or effective financial management

The workforce plan has come to many as a little surprising, with the planned number of staff actually being lowered when compared with the 2023 Long-Term Workforce plan, however this 10 year plan outlines ways to ensure employees are happy and productive.

One of the ways this is going to be achieved is with the increased use of technology to stop clinical staff from being tied up in paperwork exercises and keep personnel where they’re needed most: in front of patients. Currently, THRIVE streamlines the data and report production by entirely cutting out the hospital’s need for active report creation, as it simply links the data as it is created to the people who need it in a usable format thereby promoting meaningful change. 

This means more time for teams to handle core responsibilities as opposed to time consuming work on spreadsheets and exports. 

Alongside this, data technologies can alleviate and prevent staff burnout by ensuring well planned breaks. Poor planning of clinical slots is causing overworked staff to push through their rests and setting teams up to fail. By addressing simple issues like late starts (identifying trends through THRIVE data) there could be a huge impact on staff morale. Skilled people are leaving the NHS workforce under current pressures and this needs addressing before ‘underperformance’ is punished.

Also mentioned in this chapter are pay rewards for high performing trusts which is a fantastic incentive, but when the NHS begins to withhold pay increases due to poor performance it will be absolutely vital to have solid data to back up these arguments. Withholding pay without upstanding data sources will open the door to litigating action meaning the NHS needs an independent data source, free of bias that is able to flag and verify productivity performance on a national scale with a clear ranking.

Powering transformation: innovation to drive healthcare reform

“We have identified 5 transformative technologies – data, AI, genomics, wearables and robotics – that will personalise care, improve outcomes, increase productivity and boost economic growth.”

Page 15, ‘Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’

Highlights include: 

• • Introduce multi-year budgets and require NHS organisations to reserve at least 3% of annual spend for one-time investments in service transformation, to help translate innovations into practice more rapidly

• • Expand the role life sciences and technology companies can play in service delivery. Streamline procurement of technology

Multi-year budgets are a fantastic way of allowing NHS organisations to plan better for their future. It gives the opportunity to create clear long term planning without the looming threat of unexpected budget reductions. It will also give organisations more wiggle room when it comes to negotiating contracts with suppliers, knowing they can get long term contracts at cheaper rates instead of having to opt for annually renewed options that come with inflation-linked price rises.

Requiring a minimum 3% spend on transformation projects will force trusts into productivity improvement work with funds that may otherwise get spent on maintaining the status quo. A clear message that there needs to be immediate systematic change.

Factoring into this the streamlining of procurement for innovative technologies and soon organisations will have the best opportunities they have ever had to really invest in products and services that will improve the service delivered by the NHS.

With improvement investment it is important to remember the return on investment of any new technology. Consider how quickly the initial investment can be recovered in the form of improved utilisation, and only after that point can the productivity increases be seen as a positive ROI. Of course, there is a view of ‘pay to play’ that comes with any new technology so it is likely to be judged based on the length of time required to recover the initial payment and the financial improvements made afterwards. THRIVE is purposely very competitively priced and has been seen to provide ROI within weeks, not years, at top-performing locations. 

Productivity and a new financial foundation

“While the NHS will need investment in the future, it is now self-evident that more money alone has not always led to better care.”

“Digitalisation, as in other industries, will deliver far more productively for far lower cost.”

Page 16, ‘Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’

Highlights include: 

• • Urgently resolve the NHS’ productivity crisis. For the next 3 years the NHS has been set a target to deliver a 2% year on year productivity gain

• • Distribute NHS funding more equally locally, so it is better aligned with health needs. In the meantime, target extra funding to areas with disproportionate economic and health challenges. 

• • Deconstruct block contracts – paid irrespective of how many patients are seen or how good care is – with the intention of realigning the activity delivered and funding being provided by an ICB. 

2% year on year productivity targets are a brilliant way to slowly but steadily raise the NHS back to its pre-covid activity levels. This will not be done overnight and will require extensive work to achieve plus significant investment in tools that work. THRIVE demonstrated increases of between 5% and 30% year on year improvements in many categories from networks using the tool, eclipsing the one year targets and in many cases equalling the 3 year total targets.

It is not always obvious what will have an impact on productivity. Data can identify trends and then changes can be implemented. A robust recording and reporting system can then see the immediate impact of those changes. If the change is positive, then best practice can be shared elsewhere with proof in the numbers. If the change is unproductive then teams will need to react quickly and make additional adjustments. Being agile is what will ensure the future of the NHS.

THRIVE also clearly displays the actual performance being achieved by each of its providers within an ICB. With healthcare funding moving to a model that aims to spend money where it’s needed and reward those performing well every ICB must be able to identify both of these aspects on a fair and even basis before deciphering where funds should be allocated.

Summary

“Delivering this Plan will not be easy, but neither was the creation of the National Health Service. If we succeed, we will be able to say with pride, echoed through the remaining decades of this century, that we were the generation that built an NHS fit for the future and a fairer Britain, where everyone lives well for longer. 

Let’s get to it.”

Page 16, ‘Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’ 

Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

While the new NHS 10-year plan has sparked debate – particularly around implementation, funding, and workforce sustainability – it also lays out an ambitious vision for modernising and revolutionising healthcare in the UK. It will be important for NHS leaders to recognise both the challenges and opportunities this plan presents while embracing them with an open mind.

With a focus on data driven productivity and performance management, the THRIVE software is designed to support NHS teams in delivering more efficient, transparent, and patient-focused care. Despite the complexities ahead, Inform People and the THRIVE team remain optimistic about the future and committed to helping the NHS succeed in this next chapter of transformation.

Email us at info@informpeople.com