Government must get ‘militant’ about interoperability, says Bracken

The cofounder of the UK government digital service has called on the current government to stop making things “worse” and ensure that digital systems in the NHS talk to each other.

Mike Bracken, founding partner of global consultancy Public Digital, told Digital Health Rewired 2025 that the government must insist on the “militant adoption of standards around interoperability”.

Speaking at the opening keynote session on the Digital Transformation Stage on 18 March 2025, Bracken said that it was time to “stop digging, stop making it worse” and called on the government to sit down with suppliers.

“[Tell them] ‘if you want to play in this space, here are the rules,” he said.

Bracken argued that allowing big suppliers and huge IT contracts to continue to dominate the NHS would only deliver “bigger boats for billionaires”, adding that there is a need to “create a market”.

“We are not in a market. There’s very little competition,” Bracken said.

Bracken expressed his sympathy for the individuals affected by the government’s announcement that NHS England is to be abolished, but suggested that the disruption at the centre could be an opportunity for a reset in the NHS’s approach to digital technology, creating an environment that would unlock potential and improve outcomes.

“NHSE  has failed to shape the market,” he told Digital Health News.

Bracken – who at one point in his presentation showed a slide with a picture of Elon Musk – said it was important to recognise that a “new breed of political leader” had shown how quickly technology and “messaging by small numbers of people” could have an impact.

He emphasised that many nations, including Bangladesh and Togo, had shown themselves adept at using technology to communicate health messages to their citizens.

Technology is moving to a position where it is not only changing health systems, “it is now changing democracies” he said.

Speaking in the same session, Sonia Patel, chief technology officer at NHSE, said that “we might all have a bit of a hangover” following the announcement on the abolition of NHSE, but she insisted she was “optimistic” about the potential for digital progress and that now is a “pivotal moment in history” for healthcare technology.

Asked if there would be enough people working in digital at the centre to get the job done, following the demise of NHSE, she told Digital Health News: “Time will tell.”