Technology supports clinical consultations, diagnostics, prevention, and many other aspects of healthcare. Digital transformation requires health systems to evolve quickly to deliver services in these areas. At the national level, governments are exploring new policies to safely adopt and evaluate digital health solutions. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is also creating new opportunities to improve healthcare services. Healthcare leaders are seeking to understand the scope, context and application of this new technology.  

Our work

Our multi-disciplinary team supports healthcare leaders to navigate advances in digital health and AI. This includes evaluating the cost-effectiveness of digital health solutions, the role of digital technologies in mental health service delivery and helping to implement digital health programmes in places with limited resources. 

In AI, we provide guidance to support children’s confidence and wellbeing in an AI-driven world. We also support organisations to use AI responsibly, and we help clinical researchers develop the skills they need to evaluate AI in healthcare. 

Click on the tabs below to explore our recent projects in digital health and AI. 

Digital health and AI

Mental Health Innovations

Since 2024 we have partnered with mental health charity Mental Health Innovations (MHI) to produce policy reports on the role of digital tools in mental health service delivery. These include meeting the mental health needs of specific groups, and the use of technology to support the delivery of mental health services. 
 
To date, we have published three reports with MHI: 

A fourth report entitled AI in Mental Health Charities is forthcoming in autumn 2026. 

A further four reports will follow in 2027-2028.

Project contacts: Mrs Melanie Leis and Dr Chris Agape Ajah

Thinking for Themselves

From 2026 to 2028 we will be conducting research funded by Bukhman Philanthropies on how children navigate AI in their daily lives. The findings of the project – “Thinking for Themselves: Supporting children's confidence and wellbeing in an AI-shaped world” – will be published in 2028. 
 
A unique aspect of our work on mental health is involving young people in the research. To this end, the Thinking for Themselves team will be supported by a public advisory group of children and their parents, ensuring that young people’s voices remain at the heart of the project.  
 
Read more about the project in this news story. 

Project contact: Sophia Batchelor 

Digital in Primary Care

In 2023, we published Digital Health in Primary Health Care in Sub-Saharan Africa. Co-written with the Global Digital Health Unit at Imperial College London and funded by the UKRI Policy Support Fund, it looked at how digital health is used to drive innovation in primary health in Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting examples and lessons learned.  

Read a summary of the report in this news item.  

Project contact: Dr Saira Ghafur 

Racial and Ethnic Inequities

In 2022, we published Addressing Racial and Ethnic Inequities in Data-Driven Health Technologies. The report outlines the key things to consider when developing AI and machine learning to avoid worsening health inequalities.

Project contact: Dr Saira Ghafur 

Our highlights

The New Childhood

Children aged 13 and under are often overlooked in discussions of mental health support, despite this being a formative period in which emotional difficulties first emerge, and patterns of seeking help begin to take shape.

The New Childhood brings together multiple sources of evidence – including children’s own perspectives, Shout conversation data, practitioner experience, and expert interviews – to examine the mental health needs of younger children and the extent to which current systems are meeting them. 

The Future State of Health and Healthcare in 2035

In 2024, Professor Lord Ara Darzi was asked by the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, to consider how technological advances could shape the future of healthcare in England by 2035.
 
Known as the 'Future State’ programme, it brought together a range of experts from diverse fields to produce a white paper and four short reports, which fed into the NHS’s 10 Year Health Plan for England [PDF, 450KB] and influenced global health policy. The programme represented the most comprehensive examination of healthcare technology potential ever undertaken for the NHS.

Our highlights

Cable network

NHS Data: Maximising its impact for all

Our report, 'NHS Data: Maximising its impact for all', published in 2023, identifies strategic and technical recommendations to move towards developing a health data policy ecosystem that is designed so that value, either clinical, societal or financial, is more readily extracted from patient data.

Download our report: NHS Data: Maximising its impact for all

Doctor explaining to a patient using a tablet

Evaluating digital health solutions

Digital health solutions have much potential to positively transform health and care. However for progress in the sector, these technologies must be evaluated in a timely, cost-effective and robust way. 

Our paper, ‘Challenges for the evaluation of digital health solutions—A call for innovative evidence generation approaches’, takes a look at current evaluation strategies and assesses the challenges faced by stakeholders. Published in Nature last year, it calls for new ways to facilitate the safe and responsible growth of the digital health sector. 

Read the paper here: Challenges for the evaluation of digital health solutions—A call for innovative evidence generation approaches.

A photograph of a report called improving cyber security in the NHS

Improving cyber security in the NHS

In July 2019, we published a White Paper titled, “Improving Cyber Security in the NHS,” outlining the risks and threats to the NHS in the event of a cyber-attack.

This report, which was presented at the House of Lords, made key recommendations for cyber security best practice to address vulnerabilities in health systems. 

Download our report: Improving Cyber Security in the NHS White Paper 2020 PDF

Previous projects

Digital Solutions in Health

COVID-19 rapidly changed how healthcare organisations used digital technology. But to understand what worked and how digital tools could shape future care we conducted a survey (run by YouGov) in six countries. We found that digital technology has improved the quality and delivery of healthcare as documented in our report Embracing Digital: is COVID-19 the catalyst for lasting change? [PDF, 8.9MB], commissioned by Ernst & Young. 
 
Project contact: Mrs Melanie Leis

Digital Tech in Primary Care

 
During COVID-19, GP appointments moved from face-to-face to video and telephone. 
 
We conducted an international study called inSIGHT that evaluated how doctors used digital technologies during the pandemic. We surveyed more than 1,600 general practitioners from 20 countries and found that virtual delivery can have a positive impact on quality and safety of care. The majority acknowledged a positive effect on the delivery of preventive care and acute care, identification of patients that need escalation of care, and  and patient satisfaction.
 
Project contact:  Dr Ana Luisa Neves

Evidence for Digital

There is no agreed way to show if digital health solutions work. This can make it hard for new ideas to be adopted.  
 
We explored new ways to assess digital health tools to help patients, healthcare professionals and industry make better decisions and to support the uptake of effective digital health solutions in the NHS. 

Read our evaluations: 

Project contact: Dr Saira Ghafur 

Safeguarding Health Systems

 In 2020, we launched the report Safeguarding our Healthcare Systems: A global framework for cybersecurity [PDF, 2.3MB].
 
It looked at global healthcare cybersecurity and created a framework to help healthcare organisations prepare for cyber threats, strengthen their defences and protect patients. 

Project contact: Dr Saira Ghafur