Rewired 2026: The second wave of NHS digital

Digital Health Rewired at the Birmingham NEC this year made one thing clear: For many NHS organisations, rather than simply going digital, the next step is making digital infrastructure more useful, more connected and more responsive to the realities of care delivery.

The challenge is no longer about getting digital into the system – and that marks a meaningful shift in the conversation. The first wave of NHS digital was rightly focused on putting core systems in place. Much of the work was about replacing paper, building digital foundations and establishing the electronic patient record as a critical part of modern care delivery. That work matters and – in many organisations – it is still evolving.

But at Rewired 2026, the tone felt different, and with around 93% of trusts now having an EPR, the harder questions are coming to the surface. How do NHS organisations get more value from the digital estate they already have? How do they connect systems, improve usability, support staff under pressure and turn digital investment into something that genuinely helps care delivery?

That is the context for the next phase of NHS digital. It is the shift from getting digital in, to making digital work.

Why this second wave matters

This next phase is more demanding than the first because it is less about implementation milestones and more about operational and clinical impact. It is about whether technology is helping teams solve real problems. This includes improving flow, supporting decisions in real time, reducing friction in workflows and helping services coordinate care across settings.

That was reflected across the event. Conversations at Rewired repeatedly returned to productivity, patient flow, staff experience, interoperability, non-acute care and the practical realities of delivery. There was a clear sense that NHS organisations are looking beyond big transformation narratives and focusing more closely on what technology is enabling on the ground.

In that environment, digital maturity is not defined by how many systems are in place. It is defined by how well those systems work together, how effectively they support frontline teams and how quickly they can respond to changing service needs.

Patient flow is a test of whether digital is delivering value

One of the clearest examples of this second-wave thinking is patient flow. At Rewired, flow was not discussed as a narrow operational issue – it came through as a system-wide challenge tied to safety, productivity, discharge, capacity and experience.

Patient flow is also where the gap between digitising a process and improving it becomes most visible. Organisations do not need more technology for its own sake – they need better visibility, better coordination and better decision-making across increasingly complex pathways. It is not enough to know what is happening. Teams need to know what to do next: which patients are ready for discharge but awaiting coordination, where capacity is opening up and where risks are escalating.

That requires more than digital tools – it takes the right leadership, culture and mindset. It is why we chose Rewired to launch FLOW: A Handbook to Creating the Right Conditions for Patient Flow, written by Nick White and Dr Paul Deffley. The book draws on systems thinking and continuous improvement principles to help hospital leaders create the conditions that make flow work – from measuring the right indicators to driving cultural and behavioural change on the ground.

Effective patient flow demands all of these things at once – connected systems, real-time intelligence, the right leadership and a culture of continuous improvement. That is what makes it such a clear test of whether digital is delivering real value, and why getting it right has implications well beyond flow itself.

Real world examples reinforce this. Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust has shown how digital patient flow tools can help improve visibility of bed capacity, discharge activity and community hospital pathways. University Hospital Southampton has also shown what happens when digital supports the realities of emergency care workflows, giving teams better real-time visibility and a more usable, less paper-heavy environment.

Making the most of existing digital investments

If the first wave of NHS digital was about getting core systems in place, the second wave is about making them work harder. For most organisations that does not mean starting again. It means connecting what is already there, closing functional gaps and improving how technology supports frontline teams in practice. It is another sentiment we heard at Rewired – building on existing digital estates rather than replacing them, adding targeted capability and supporting incremental change without creating unnecessary disruption.

Meeting that need, we believe, calls for a platform approach – one that can connect into existing systems rather than compete with them. Miya Precision is well placed at this stage, not simply because it is modular, but because that modularity sits within a broader, standards-based platform.

For many NHS organisations, the next step is not wholesale reset. It is about improving what already exists, adding targeted capability, closing functional gaps, connecting workflows and supporting incremental change without creating unnecessary disruption.

This requires technology that works with existing estates rather than against them, with the flexibility to operate across care settings, enable interoperability across organisational boundaries and deploy capability where it will have the greatest practical impact.

In other words, the value of Miya Precision is not just that it can be deployed module by module, but that it helps organisations move from fragmented digital infrastructure towards a more connected, responsive and effective operating model for care delivery.

The shift to non-acute settings

Another strong theme from Rewired was that the next phase of digital will not be defined by acute settings alone. Speaking in the opening keynote, NHS England National CCIO, Alec Price-Forbes, highlighted that future central funding will increasingly focus on non-acute and community settings. With more ownership and spending power also being given to local providers, organisations and ICSs, it represents a clear signal for the market.

As attention shifts further into community, non-acute and cross-system models of care, organisations will need technology that can adapt to different operational contexts and support coordination beyond the hospital.

Usability also remains central. If digital is going to deliver meaningful value, it has to work for frontline teams in the real environments they operate in. Poor usability slows adoption and creates friction, but good usability supports safer workflows, faster decisions and better day-to-day performance.

Rewired showed where the NHS is heading

Thank you to everyone who spent time with us at Rewired. It was fantastic to speak with so many delegates, leaders, clinicians, operational teams and innovators over the two days, and to see so many customers, colleagues and partners from across the NHS and supplier community. We came away enthused by the conversations, encouraged by the progress being made across the NHS and clear about the challenges still to solve.

Rewired did not simply reinforce that digital matters, it showed more clearly where the NHS is heading next, and that direction aligns with how Miya Precision was designed. The goal is not to ask organisations to start again. It is to help them make digital work better, in the right place, for the right problem, at the right time.

Want to learn more about what we do? See more info on the power of Miya Precision or get in touch with our team to request a demo.