Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Digital dreams are a techno-nightmare for the NHS
SOLOMON HUGHES looks at the multiple IT projects that are currently failing the NHS, and asks why the state doesn’t simply train its own health staff to do the work in-house
A general view of staff on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London

BOTH the Tories and Labour are promising “digital” will save the NHS — but in the real world, this technophile talk sounds empty, because the government’s “big contracts” watchdog warns the NHS’s main IT programmes are in real danger of failure.

This year, Health Secretary Steve Barclay said that “supporting innovation and the adoption of the right digital health technologies” is key to NHS recovery after the pandemic.

Barclay thinks digital is the answer to doing more with less, arguing “we know” that “digitally mature NHS trusts operate with approximately 10 per cent improved efficiency.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Defence Secretary John Healey (third left) and his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu (second left) view a long-range air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missile, during a visit to MDBA in Hertfordshire, July 9, 2025
Features / 22 August 2025
22 August 2025

MBDA’s Alabama factory makes components for Boeing’s GBU-39 bombs used to kill civilians in Gaza. Its profits flow through Stevenage to Paris — and it is one of the British government’s favourite firms, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds
Features / 8 August 2025
8 August 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds during a visit to Horiba Mira in Nuneaton, to mark the launch of the Government's Industrial Strategy, June 23, 2025
Features / 25 July 2025
25 July 2025

Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

LOOKING THE OTHER WAY: Peter Mandelson seems to have been rewarded with a post in Washington for his continued friendship with Jeffrey Epstein while Jes Staley, the former Barclays banker, has been banned from holding senior positions in finance
Features / 25 July 2025
25 July 2025

There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

Similar stories
(left to right) Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Dr James Mar
Britain / 9 April 2025
9 April 2025
Labour warned that workers expect better as anger mounts over welfare cuts and public-sector pay
RELIEVING THE STRAIN: Could some version of ‘hospital at h
Features / 9 April 2025
9 April 2025
Born from my communist social worker mother’s efforts to bridge healthcare gaps, Labour’s push for home-based care now risks becoming another avenue for the US corporate takeover of the NHS, writes RICHARD CLARKE
Features / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Behind Starmer’s headline-grabbing abolition of NHS England lies a ruthless drive to centralise control so that cuts of £6.6 billion can be made — even if it means reducing cancer services and clinical staff, writes JOHN LISTER
WHAT KIND OF CHANGE? Keir Starmer happy to selfie with membe
Features / 15 February 2025
15 February 2025
Diverting public funding to grow private-sector ‘spare capacity,’ actively undermines the funding and staff available to the NHS and results in a worse service, write JOHN PUNTIS and TONY O’SULLIVAN