The 10 Year Health Plan sets out three core shifts: from hospital to community, treatment to prevention, and analogue to digital. At its heart is the principle that services should be digital by default – delivering better care, better outcomes, better patient experience and lower costs.

When digital systems are well designed, properly integrated and used confidently by staff, they reduce friction, duplication and delay. They can improve patient experience, shorten hospital stays, support care in the most appropriate setting, including at home, and give clinicians more time with patients.

Where we are

As the NHS moves from analogue to digital, it’s important that organisations can see how they compare to others and learn from each other’s experiences.

That’s why we regularly assess how digital technology is being adopted across the NHS. Two key tools help us do this: the Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA) and the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) Usability Survey. The DMA was last run in 2025, and the EPR Usability Survey for Secondary Care in 2024.

• The DMA gives a clear, evidence-based picture of how well technology, digital and data are embedded across NHS organisations, in line with the What Good Looks Like framework. It sets a national baseline and identifies where action can drive further improvement.
• The latest findings show real progress across the system, with most organisations now having core digital capabilities in place. However, there is more to be gained — particularly through better integration, optimisation, and developing skills and governance. Read the DMA report summary.
• The EPR Usability Survey captures staff experiences of using electronic patient records in secondary care and general practice. It shows how digital design, implementation and training affect staff time, satisfaction and the quality of care.
• The 2024 secondary care survey found that, alongside high EPR adoption, there is room to improve usability, training and workflow integration. Addressing these areas will help organisations get more from their digital systems — supporting staff, improving patient care and enabling more efficient ways of working. Read the EPR Usability Survey findings.

Together, the DMA and EPR Usability Survey give a system-wide view of how digital capabilities are supporting care, and where further improvements can boost quality, outcomes and overall performance.

Insights

The combined findings show a clear and positive relationship: organisations with higher levels of digital maturity tend to deliver improvements in productivity, patient care and experience particularly where digital transformation is supported by the right culture, strong leadership and clinical engagement.

The DMA and EPR Usability Survey highlight that meaningful progress is being made across the system, with widespread adoption of digital tools and ways of working. They also point to a significant opportunity to realise greater value from these investments — particularly through optimising system configuration, strengthening interoperability, and ensuring staff are well supported to use digital solutions effectively.

As an example, among responding organisations, large acute trusts in the top quartile for digital maturity compared with those in the bottom quartile:

• Are 8% more productive overall (cost-weighted activity per pound spent)
• Have 4% shorter average length of stay, improving patient flow
• Deliver 8% better performance against 18-week RTT standards
• Score 20–30% higher across the NHS Oversight Framework, including productivity, access, safety and workforce domains

However, these benefits are not delivered through technology alone. Organisations that combine digital investment with workforce capability, change management, workflow redesign and effective governance are more likely to realise the full range of benefits. Where these elements are less developed, the impact of digital investment can be more limited.

The 2025 DMA highlights several areas where further progress can unlock additional benefits:

• 93% of trusts have an EPR, though only 30% have fully integrated, bi-directional data flows, indicating an opportunity to strengthen system-wide connectivity and information sharing
• While almost all providers can access Shared Care Records, this capability is not yet consistently embedded into everyday workflows or accessed through seamless user experiences such as single sign-on meaning staff access multiple systems
• Three-quarters of providers understand their technical debt, with an opportunity to further address this through targeted investment and capability development
• Half of providers report fragmented online access for patients, highlighting an opportunity to simplify and improve the patient experience
• 86% of providers deliver Hospital at Home, though data sharing across organisational boundaries is not yet consistent, limiting the full potential of these models
• Two-thirds of providers report that executive teams understand digital workforce requirements, with scope to build further leadership capability
• 90% of providers have a central data repository, many of which are now bringing together clinical and operational data to support more integrated decision-making.

Findings from the latest EPR Usability Survey reinforce the importance of usability, training and workflow design in realising the benefits of digital systems:

• 60% of doctors and 70% of nurses would welcome additional EPR training
• 44% report receiving no further training after joining their organisation, despite evidence that regular training can return 50–60 minutes of clinical time per week
• Many clinicians report spending significant time on administrative tasks within EPRs, particularly where workflows are not fully optimised
• Overall, this suggests there is a meaningful opportunity to reduce low-value digital administration and improve staff experience

Improving configuration, usability and workflow design within clinical systems alongside supporting staff to use them effectively represents a significant opportunity to enhance care delivery, improve experience and make better use of clinical time.

Taken together, the DMA and EPR Usability Survey show that the NHS has established strong digital foundations. The next phase is about building on this progress ensuring that digital maturity translates into consistent improvements in care quality, outcomes, experience and the effective use of resources across the system.

How we progress on the journey

Digital-by-default is not a one-off programme, but a long-term shift in how care is designed, delivered and supported, and a critical enabler of the 10 Year Health Plan.

The focus must now move from deployment to optimisation, ensuring digital capabilities consistently improve care quality, patient outcomes and experience, while helping services run more effectively and sustainably.

To achieve this, NHS staff need to feel confident adopting and improving digital tools like EPRs, embedding them into everyday practice. This is essential to enabling new models of care, more joined-up services, and realising the full benefits of digital-by-default across the system.

The next phase