Delivering Health Innovation and Improvement in the East of England

Piers Ricketts, CEO of Health Innovation East, Delivering his opening speech.

Eastern Powerhouse Members Health Innovation East, in partnership with the East of England APPG, held an event in parliament this week to explore how innovation can deliver improvements in health across the region.

The event was timely, following on from the publication of the Government’s new Ten Year Health Plan for England: Fit for the Future, which unsurprisingly places great emphasis on the pace and scale  of scientific and technological innovation in transforming future health services. Central to this plan is the role of genomic research and medicine and the potential of AI to transform administrative functions.

Health Innovation East are at the cutting edge of these developments. The event in parliament showcased the companies with whom they are working across the East of England including:

• PocDoc: Early detection of cardiovascular risk factors

• C the Signs: Improving cancer detection with AI

• TidalSense: Improving respiratory care with AI

• Tend VR: Providing therapy through virtual reality

• SiSU Health: Enabling preventative health

• P.Happi: Supporting women’s health.

The UK and the East of England have a competitive advantage in life sciences and medicine, with world class businesses, universities and research institutions. This can not only reform health and care services but contribute to economic growth.

It is hoped that the application of new technologies can address the disparities in health outcomes across the region but also create new economic opportunities for people and businesses.

About the 10-year Health Plan

The plan aims to modernise the NHS through three fundamental shifts:

• Delivering more care outside hospital settings

• Embedding digital technologies throughout the health system, and

• Prioritising preventive healthcare over reactive treatment.

This vision responds to growing concerns about NHS sustainability and equity—highlighting widening gaps in healthy life expectancy, chronic understaffing, and increasing public concerns over access and quality.

Care will move from hospitals into communities, with new “Neighbourhood Health Centres” combining services from GPs, pharmacists, social care, and voluntary groups. Extended hours and accessible community clinics aim to reduce pressure on A&E and improve early intervention outcomes.

The shift from analogue to digital focuses on liberating staff from administrative burdens through automation, implementing AI decision-support, and expanding the NHS app into a “doctor in your pocket” with personal health records, online consultations, and appointment management by 2028.

The most transformative shift is from sickness to prevention. The plan commits to halving the healthy life expectancy gap between affluent and deprived regions and launching bold public health interventions, including tobacco and vape regulation, childhood obesity “moonshots”, and mandatory reporting of food healthiness—signalling a fundamental shift toward integrating public health into NHS services.

Implementation is backed by structural reforms including the abolition of NHS England, the introduction of new regulatory systems, multi-year budgets, greater transparency through performance scorecards, and expansion of workforce training alongside AI and digital fluency .

However, implementation challenges loom large. Critics point out gaps in funding clarity, insufficient detail on how reforms will translate into day-to-day practice, and concerns about community service capacity and staff recruitment (The King's Fund). The sustainability of community services, relative neglect of public health levers, and the risk of unmet workforce needs raise questions over the viability of the plan’s ambitions.

The intention to devolve health, with a new operating model for making services more local, is at the heart of the ‘system architecture’. But this is lacking in detail and somewhat opaque. Aligning health boundaries with Mayoral Combined Authorities is the first step that must be taken to make this happen.

Essentially, “Fit for the Future” sets out an ambitious yet familiar trajectory: shifting care into communities, embracing the role of technology, and emphasising prevention. Its success hinges on turning vision into detailed and resourced implementation, ensuring the NHS system—and its staff—can deliver against expectations.