Transformation Blog Feed

Cyber first responders: Strengthening NHS defences in the digital age

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:17:49 GMT

Martin Jarvis, Incident Management Lead in our Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), explains how the preparedness of individual NHS organisations, working alongside central response capabilities, forms a protective partnership to keep the NHS safe.

Driving forward the NHS 10 Year Health Plan’s commitment to move 'from analogue to digital' means cyber security is more critical than ever. As we build a digitally-enabled health service, where patients can access care 24/7 through the NHS App and other digital channels, robust cyber defences are essential for patient safety and continuity of care.

An easier way to manage vaccinations in schools

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 14:58:14 GMT

Helen Pitts shares a video walk-though of the new Manage vaccinations in schools (Mavis) service, which helps those involved in school vaccinations handle the challenging logistics of vaccinating hundreds of children in a single day.

Manage vaccinations in schools (shortened to Mavis) is a digital service we're building to support vaccination providers around the country, so that they’re easier to manage and more effective.

Vaccination providers visit schools to deliver vaccinations to hundreds of children in a single day. This can require a great deal of planning, preparing, and coordination.

A digital-first approach to patient communications

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:40:52 GMT

Joe and Pete explain the greater emphasis being placed on digital patient messaging across the NHS and the potential to provide a more seamless experience for patients, reduce the number of missed appointments and save the NHS money.

This week, the Secretary of State announced the start of our journey to becoming a "digital first NHS" – here is what it means for you.

In other aspects of our lives, it's second nature to receive messages digitally. Think online bank statements, email receipts for our online shopping or text messages confirming our home deliveries have arrived. But for various reasons, the NHS has found this challenging, and we still send out millions of letters to patients each year.

Designing for inclusion: What we learned at Google

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Thu, 22 May 2025 13:03:15 GMT

Karol Kuczera and Max Marulli De Barletta reflect on their visit to Google’s Accessibility Discovery Centre and how inclusive technology can enable more equitable access to health, education and broader social participation.

In today’s NHS, digital tools are central to how we deliver care, share information, and empower people to manage their health. But for those facing barriers to access – whether through disability, language or low digital confidence – these tools can just as easily widen inequalities as reduce them.

How to stay one step ahead of a cyber attack

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 07:36:03 GMT

Ryan Lee explains how our Threat Operations team use a unique network of intelligence and techniques to detect advanced cyber threats before they can cause harm – and what everyone working in the NHS should do to help.

If you worked for the NHS 10 years ago, you would have heard cyber security spoken about quite differently. It was often seen as an IT issue, lumped into conversations about software updates and internet usage. Now, cyber is rightly understood to be a patient safety issue.

As the cyber threat has become more sophisticated, so has our cyber security approach for the NHS. We have evolved significantly in recent years in response to the growing threat. My team’s specialist work in threat operations is one example of this, and just one part of our central cyber security defence approach.

Accessibility is a choice

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Thu, 16 May 2024 06:38:45 GMT

Claire Dellar talks about her experience of using assistive technology and explains how other people’s choices not to prioritise accessibility affect her.

I spend a lot of time in conversations that start something like this:

“I’m really sorry I can’t fill in that report, it’s not accessible to me. Can you send it in another format?”

How we’re transforming our digital service catalogue

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Thu, 15 May 2025 14:58:16 GMT

Thasmim Ali describes the changes we’ve made to our digital service catalogue to make it easier for our stakeholders to find out and understand what national digital services are available for NHS staff and organisations to use.

NHS England provides more than 100 national digital services for the NHS. They’re listed in the service catalogue on the NHS England Digital website.

However, after speaking with digital leaders across the system, our ‘Who Does What’ programme team identified two important problems.

New choices for GP IT

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Thu, 15 May 2025 15:11:10 GMT

As we prepare to bring new products and suppliers into the GP IT market, Dan Wintercross discusses the Tech Innovation Framework.

The demand for primary care is increasing, with GP practices currently delivering more than 27 million appointments every month. It’s more important than ever to make sure they have the best digital tools to support them to do their job.

Multi-factor authentication: a silver cyber bullet?

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Thu, 29 May 2025 13:31:29 GMT

Clinical lead Chris Day says full implementation of multi-factor authentication is critical to local organisations’ cyber security.

Cyber security is about risk reduction and that can make it a difficult sell in the NHS.

Hard-pressed boards often want to know how much something is going to save them, but the cost of not implementing cyber security measures can only be calculated when their network or system is compromised.

The invisible ecosystem that protects us

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 09:37:59 GMT

Alex Toft, Head of Technical Intervention in our Technology Live Services directorate, explains how the renewal of the NHS's public key infrastructure (PKI) over the coming months will lay the foundations for trusted identities and secure communications for the next generation.

Despite its mathematical origins stretching back to the 1960s, the collection of technologies and strong governance which constitute a modern public key infrastructure (PKI) remain as relevant today as they ever have been. Anybody using a computer will lever this technology on a constant basis, likely without ever knowing it. Ultimately it builds trust: trust of people, trust of systems, trust of software and trust of documents.