Digital Health’s 2024 Review: Top 10 news stories

The last 12 months has seen a new government, a major cyber attack on the NHS and a commitment to £2bn tech funding hitting the headlines.

Digital Health News has picked out 10 of the news stories that sparked the most conversation in the world of digital health and tech in 2024. Let’s take a look at what made the list:

10. NHS England scraps £300m digital pathways framework for GP tech

Just squeezing into the top 10 is this story from June 2024, in which we revealed that NHS England had cancelled its £300 million digital pathways framework, following delays caused by a legal claim.

The framework had been aimed at driving a rapid move to a modern general practice model by connecting integrated care boards (ICBs) with approved suppliers for digital GP tools for messaging, consultations and care navigation.

A contract notice was published by NHSE in October 2023 to establish a framework agreement, however in February 2024, suppliers were told that the procurement had been automatically suspended following a legal claim. Now the framework has been ditched for good.

9. NHS tech is at ‘tipping point’, says Amanda Pritchard

June also saw NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, describe the NHS as at “tipping point” when it comes to the use of technology.

Speaking at the NHS Confed Expo in Manchester on 12 June 2024, she said: “We have a unique opportunity to build on what we already have, and truly revolutionise our patient offer, giving the public greater control over their health than ever before.”

Pritchard told delegates at the conference that the NHS App was being used by 34 million people, which she said equates to more than 75% of the population and “twice the subscribers that Netflix has”.

Digital Health News suspects that more people are tuning into Netflix on a day-to-day basis than the app, which was downloaded by many during COVID lockdowns, only to be later forgotten.

8. Major cyber security incident declared at Merseyside Hospital

Cyber crime hit the headlines for the third time in 2024 when Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust declared a cyber security incident on 25 November.

It followed major attacks on NHS Dumfries and Galloway in March and NHS pathology provider Synnovis in June.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said that all outpatient appointments at the trust had been cancelled and the ongoing incident was likely to impact performance at Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral.

The next week the trust said that it was in the process of reinstating its main clinical system, and that some services would continue to be affected as systems were restored.

Just days after the incident at Wirral, Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust suffered a cyber attack, which also impacted Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

“Criminals gained unlawful access to data through a digital gateway service shared by Alder Hey and Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital,” the trust said.

7. Global IT outage disrupting NHS ‘caused by antivirus software’

On 18 July 2024, a botched software update from antivirus firm CrowdStrike led to a global IT outage which caused Windows computers to shut down. As well as affecting healthcare services, the outage disrupted banks and airports.

The news broke in July while Digital Health Summer Schools was taking place in Durham and Dr Simon Wallace, chief clinical information officer at Microsoft, told delegates that “the issue has been identified to a third party antivirus company called CrowdStrike Falcon, and it’s impacting Windows virtual machines”.

NHS England confirmed that the outage was affecting EMIS, a system used by GP practices and pharmacies to book appointments, view patient notes, order prescriptions and make referrals for patients.

Luckily the outage was resolved by the next day, meaning that Summer Schools delegates who had flown into the event could make their way home. Phew!

6. Ambitious shared EPR procurement for four NHS trusts ended

We love a Digital Health News exclusive, and in February 2024 we revealed that one of the largest shared electronic patient record (EPR) procurements, covering four NHS trusts in Blackpool, Lancashire and South Cumbria, was abandoned at the eleventh hour.

The procurement was stopped mid-evaluation without selecting a supplier or awarding a contract, after the trusts involved couldn’t agree on the conclusion of the EPR procurement and the unofficial preferred supplier failed to submit a compliant bid.

A spokesperson for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said that it had become apparent that the requirements they had issued for the procurement did not cover the scope of functionality needed.

5. PM pledges move to a ‘digital NHS’, following Lord Darzi report

Arguably the most significant UK healthcare report of 2024 was Lord Darzi’s independent review into the state of the NHS in England, published on 12 September 2024, in which he described the last decade as a “missed opportunity” to prepare the NHS for the future and to embrace technologies.

Wes Streeting, health secretary, commissioned the report just days after Labour’s landslide victory at the general election on 5 July 2024, to uncover the extent of the issues facing the nation’s “broken” health service.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer pledged to move “from an analogue to a digital NHS” following the report’s findings, which were dissected in by the Digital Health News team in an episode of Digital Health Unplugged.

Following the Darzi review, the government launched an online engagement platform in October 2024 for members of the public, NHS staff and experts to share their ideas to shape its 10 year health plan, which is due to be published in spring 2025.

The eagerly anticipated plan is expected to include three big shifts in healthcare outlined by Lord Darzi: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.

4. Chancellor pledges more than £2bn for NHS tech and digital

Following the change of government, the Autumn Budget was hotly anticipated across the NHS and digital health sector (as well as the rest of the country).

We were put out of our misery on 30 October 2024 when Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged to invest an additional £22.6bn for Department of Health and Social Care day-to-day spending over two years, plus more than £2bn in NHS technology and digital over 2025/2026.

Tim Horton, assistant director (Insight & Analysis) at the Health Foundation, told Digital Health News that it was difficult to know whether the figures competed with the £3.4bn investment in NHS digitisation promised by the former government because the Spring Budget talked about money being released over three years.

Labour’s funding announcement was welcomed by leaders from across the digital health, care and technology sectors as a good starting point in transforming the NHS.

However Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund, said that the health spending announced is “unlikely to be enough for patients to see a real improvement in the care they receive”.

3. NHSE to investigate Palantir for possible breach of FDP contract

Digital Health News’ top two most read stories of 2023 were both about the Federated Data Platform (FDP), so it was inevitable that it would continue to be a hot topic in 2024.

In January 2024 NHS England declared that it would investigate whether Palantir violated the terms of its contract to run the FDP by launching a covert influencer campaign targeting legal transparency non-profit Good Law Project.

Then in February 2024, the Good Law Project announced that it had taken legal action over NHSE’s heavily redacted contract with Palantir.

The controversy surrounding Palantir did not die down, with campaigners protesting at the NHS Confed Expo in June 2024, due to the conference’s sponsorship by the US data analytics giant, which is known to supply military tech to Israel.

To top it off, NHSE wrote to trusts in July 2024 informing them that they must begin using the FDP within two years, quite the U-turn from the platform’s launch in November 2023, when NHSE said that trusts and integrated care systems would not be obliged to adopt the platform.

2. Critical incident at Synnovis disrupts pathology services across SE London

At number two is the ransomware attack on pathology provider Synnovis, which caused months of disruption to NHS services in south east London and the postponement of thousands of appointments and procedures at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

NHS Blood and Transplant urgently called for donations of O Positive and O Negative blood to boost stocks following the attack, with affected hospitals unable to match patients’ blood at the same frequency as usual.

The attack led to at least five cases of “moderate” patient harm and 114 cases of “low harm” according to figures provided by South East London ICB in November 2024.

However 91 related patient safety incidents are still being reviewed and Helen Hughes, chief executive of Patient Safety Learning told Digital Health News that the true impact of delays to care “will only be seen over time.”

The whole sorry affair might have been prevented by two-factor authentication, according to Beverley Bryant, who was joint chief digital information officer at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospitals at the time of the incident.

1. Frank Hester’s reported racist remarks on Diane Abbott MP cause revulsion

Our most read story of 2024, was about racist and misogynistic remarks reportedly made by Frank Hester, chief executive of health software firm TPP, allegedly inciting violence against Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

The news report from The Guardian broke on the eve of Rewired 2024 in March 2024, resulting in widespread outrage from attendees in digital health sector.

An open letter was launched at the event in Birmingham, condemning racism and discrimination and pledging commitment to develop an ‘Equity Charter’ for the industry.

The charter’s founders, Victoria Betton, Hassan Chaudhury and Ayesha Rahim spoke about taking a stand against racism in digital health in a powerful episode of Digital Health Unplugged.

The Equity Charter will formally launch its 10 principles at Rewired 2025, which is taking place at the NEC in Birmingham on 18-19 March 2025.

What was your top news story of 2024? Let us know in the comments below. 👇