At ‘The Future of MedTech – Innovating for Tomorrow’ conference, held on 13 May 2025 at The Mercure in Northampton and jointly hosted by the British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) and AXREM, attendees heard a compelling call to action from Nata Zaman, Deputy Director of Equipping New Hospital Programme at NHS England.

In the second part of a compelling talk titled ‘Big Picture: What is the Future Policy Landscape for Medtech?’, Nata outlined how the design and construction of new hospital infrastructure must now be inseparable from the integration of medical technologies.

The first part of the talk was delivered by Heather Hobson from the Office for Life Sciences. She outlined how the upcoming Life Sciences Sector Plan is set to shape the future for medtech companies across the UK.

Nata made it clear: “Infrastructure and medtech are no longer two separate conversations. They are now one of the same because the reality is you can’t deliver the future of healthcare if you are still designing inside it.”

This vision is at the heart of the New Hospital Programme, a government-backed initiative with £15 billion allocated every five years, providing essential stability beyond the annual financial cycle.

Importantly for BHTA members, Nata emphasised that the programme is not just about building physical spaces. “It’s about making sure that this space is ready for the kind of technologies that will be coming down the line,” she said.

Legacy hospital environments have often hindered medtech deployment, with infrastructure acting as a barrier rather than a foundation. This new approach aims to reverse that, ensuring that design and build accommodate technological innovation from the outset.

With plans entering delivery phases and hospital schemes being finalised, the window for shaping this future is open, but it won’t be forever. “Once something is built, we are locked in for decades,” Nata warned, urging the industry to engage early to avoid missed opportunities.

Central to this shift is Hospital 2.0 – a standardised platform setting the baseline for room types, technical specifications, physical systems, and sustainability targets. Nata explained that this shared foundation “means you can start designing with confidence. You don’t have to reinvent for every space and every location”. For suppliers, this unlocks the potential for scale, consistency, and smoother integration.

The ambition extends well beyond current needs. “We’re trying to futureproof this. Not just for what we know we need now… but what we haven’t even thought about yet”. Key elements being built into infrastructure now include digital-ready power and connectivity, data-enabled layouts, asset tracking, and interoperable systems that support plug-and-play upgrades. As Nata put it: “If it works in one room, it should work in 500 rooms.”

Fundamentally, these new hospitals aim to be active platforms for innovation. “We are not just building hospitals passively anymore. We are building them as innovative platforms, places that are designed to evolve,” Nata said. This means treating technology not as an afterthought or retrofit, but as an intrinsic part of the architecture, supporting smarter workflows, sustainability, and a better experience for patients and clinicians alike.

Speaking to the medtech sector, Nata concluded: “If your products aren’t designed with this future in mind, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.” But with collaboration, adaptability, and shared vision: “We ensure that we can deliver successful hospitals for our future generations.”

Introduction

On 13 March 2025, Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, announced that NHS England (NHSE) will be formally abolished.

Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, confirmed that NHSE will be brought into the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) entirely over the next two years.

It is a decision that is supposed to avoid excessive duplication and inefficiencies between NHSE and DHSC. This major reform is also designed to cut bureaucracy, free up capacity, and deliver savings of hundreds of millions of pounds a year, according to the government.

What we currently know

The abolition of NHSE will be phased over the next two years, during which time it will take on a new and more focused role. Under the leadership of the recently announced NHSE executive team, during this transition period, it will:

• Act as a single buyer for life sciences and innovation – streamlining NHS procurement and ensuring faster adoption of new technologies.
• Maximise centralised procurement – cutting inefficiencies in how the NHS buys medicines, devices, and services.
• Support transformation – focusing on innovation and integrating new technologies into the health system.
• Maintain a role in waiting times and financial oversight – though with greater responsibility flowing to local NHS leaders.

The government has made clear that local NHS providers and integrated care systems (ICSs) will have more autonomy, with NHSE stepping back from detailed operational oversight. Waiting time targets and financial frameworks will remain but with greater flexibility for local leaders to decide how to meet them.

Of the combined 17,900 workforce across both NHSE and DHSC, it is expected around 9,000 will go, which means the new and clearly more powerful DHSC team will have around 9,000 staff.

While the political message is clear, the legal process is more complicated. The 2012 Health and Social Care Act legally enshrined NHS England’s independence, meaning that some legislative change will be needed to fully dissolve its infrastructure. However, Wes Streeting has confirmed that much of the change can be delivered without the need for primary legislation, stressing that “time is of a premium” and that the government will “immediately work forward” to begin the transition.

While some aspects of NHSE’s absorption into the DHSC can be enacted through secondary legislation and administrative restructuring, there will still be a need for primary legislative change at some stage. The government is working with the Leader of the House to secure an appropriate timetable, ensuring that the necessary legal adjustments are made without derailing other parliamentary priorities.

What challenges the BHTA foresees from potential procurement changes

It is not yet clear what the procurement landscape will look like with NHSE’s abolishment.

However, NHS Supply Chain, which currently reports to NHSE, is responsible for centralised procurement of products and services into the NHS, which leads to uncertainly around which body will be responsible for procurement going forwards and how centralised procurement may change.

Likewise, it is not yet clear what will happen to the NHS Central Commercial Function (CCF), which owns Sustainability and Social Value, Med Tech Stakeholder Management, and Value-Based Procurement (partially).

For BHTA members, navigating any changes to procurement could be complicated, time-consuming, and challenging. We urge the government to ensure any changes are communicated clearly and with as much time as possible, straightforward, consistent, and as seamless as possible to minimise disruption to vital healthcare services.

BHTA speculation on potential changes to the MedTech Directorate

The MedTech Directorate is set to become more powerful over these next two years, with around 7,000 new staff transitioning in from NHSE. Tasked with building a thriving UK MedTech sector, the body’s remit covers reviewing how medical devices are regulated, commissioned, and used on an ongoing basis.

The current MedTech Directorate Director, David Lawson, who came into post in 2022 will, the BHTA believes, have a much wider portfolio of responsibilities and will need a larger management structure to manage the various pillars of activities. There will now be a direct line from the centre to the ICSs so the pace change will be enhanced and as stated by the Secretary of State, ICSs will have more autonomy.

Any changes to the governance and restructuring of the MedTech Directorate will likely impact BHTA members, who may be subject to new processes. Again, we urge the government to ensure any changes are communicated clearly and with as much time as possible, straightforward, and as seamless as possible to minimise disruption to vital services.

Questions that the government needs to respond to

Off the back of NHS England being abolished, here are the key questions that the BHTA, BHTA members, and the industry more broadly need answers for:

• What will happen to NHS Supply Chain?
• What will become of the NHS Central Commercial Function?
• Who will drive the global medtech agenda – including innovation adoption – going forward? Will it be the DHSC Med Tech Directorate?
• What will become of health and social care integration? Will there be greater responsibility for social care on the part of both integrated care boards (ICBs) [downstream] and DHSC [upstream]?
• Do these NHSE/DHSC changes mean greater power for trust-based procurement organisations? What decisions redound to these non-centralised procurement organisations?
• Are there other health sector quangos that are in the frame for rationalisation similar to NHSE?
• Will the Medicines and MedTech Directorates remain separate? Will there be a new commercial function within the MedTech Directorate with a direct line to the Secretary of State, which would include NHSSC?

A new action plan has been published that outlines how NHS England will help to deliver on its commitment to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and enable the NHS to benefit from their significant value and contribution to patient care.

The ‘Small and medium enterprises action plan’ states that NHS England needs to work together with other parts of the NHS to harness the expertise of SMEs through the SME Advisory Group. NHS England will use the SME Advisory Group to fundamentally change the way that the NHS does business with this vital sub-group of suppliers.

The SME Advisory Group was established by NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and NHS Supply Chain. This group advises NHS Commercial on issues affecting SMEs and their experiences with doing business with the NHS.

Its focus is on improving the opportunities for SMEs to engage with and compete for NHS business. The group has an advisory role and does not have decision-making responsibilities. It does not consider or discuss individual procurements or seek to influence current commercial opportunities.

The group consists of 12 SME businesses, spanning the sectors that the NHS buys from. View the full list of businesses involved in the group here.

As a result of working with the SME Advisory Group and other parts of the NHS, the action plan underlines that NHS England is committed to:

• Continuing to give SMEs a clear voice and lead the activities of the SME Advisory Group.
• Better engage, communicate with, and learn from the SME community.
• Improving visibility of the NHS opportunities and encouraging SMEs’ participation in its commercial activity.
• Leveraging the innovation power of SMEs for the benefit of the NHS.
• Maximising the SME opportunity arising from social value.

Each commitment is accompanied by information about why that commitment has been chosen, what NHS England will continue doing, and what NHS England will do by 2026 or earlier.

Beyond its own commitments, NHS England is also encouraging SMEs to do the following points to maximise the ability of the NHS to work in partnership with the NHS:

• Seek and deploy collaborative approaches with other SMEs and larger businesses on common goals and challenges.
• Understand own capabilities and build robust, impactful case studies as evidence.
• Understand the NHS needs and challenges outlined in strategies and plans such as NHS Long Term Plan and the Strategic framework for NHS Commercial.
• Utilise right to receive constructive feedback.
• Tell NHS England what is working with its supplier engagement and how it can improve.
• Become familiar with procurement routes available within all supply chain tiers.
• Build relationships/networks to complement intelligence gathering and consider joining a relevant trade association. Support/attend relevant industry events.
• Register with NHS events portal for access to free-to-attend engagement events.