Digital Health Rewired 2026

Digital Health Rewired serves as a vital benchmark for digital transformation across the NHS. This year, the energy across the exhibition floor was palpable, but beneath the excitement lay a very clear, grounded message from NHS leaders and clinicians alike: the focus has shifted from buying new software to making existing systems work smarter.

Representing Toca.health at Stand C42 (unmissable thanks to our timber shed with its bright pink floor!), our team of Mat Rule, Seb Clancy, Keith Sutton and Kelly Watson spent a busy few days speaking with digital leaders, clinicians and trust executives.

Between deep dives into NHS policy, fireside chats on AI regulation, and showcasing our work on the ground, several major themes emerged that will shape the future of digital healthcare delivery.

1. Optimising existing infrastructure, not adding “new” systems

A recurring frustration expressed by trust leaders throughout the event was system fatigue. The NHS doesn’t need another isolated app or standalone platform that creates yet another data silo.

The real mandate is optimisation and interoperability. Digital teams want solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing electronic patient records (EPR), e-Referral Systems (e-RS) and legacy infrastructure, unlocking trapped data and removing manual administrative drag without forcing clinicians to learn entirely new interfaces.

2. Practical frontline impact: the Royal Berkshire success story

While high-level digital strategy is vital, the conversation at “The Shed” kept returning to one primary metric: giving clinicians their time back.

We were proud to share real-world outcomes from our ongoing work with the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, where intelligent automation is helping push the trust towards the top of the Referral to Treatment (RTT) charts:

• Drastic wait-time reductions: in neurology alone, automated triage support and workflow optimisation helped bring RTT wait times down from 2 years to just weeks.
• Streamlined triage: by automating routine data collection and pre-sorting referral pathways, clinicians spend less time managing administrative queues and more time delivering direct patient care.

3. Trust, transparency and safe AI deployment

AI remained front and centre across Rewired’s main stages. From sessions exploring The Health Foundation’s research on staff trust to insights from speakers like Alastair Denniston and Robin Carton, the consensus was clear: for AI to succeed in the NHS, it must be trustworthy, evidence-based and fully transparent.

Black-box AI models that generate outputs without explanation will not earn clinical trust. This exact requirement drove the development of our Automated Discharge Classification tool:

• Transparent reasoning: the system doesn’t just output a classification; it clearly surfaces the reasoning and confidence score behind every decision, keeping clinicians firmly in the loop.
• On-premise data control: to meet strict data sovereignty and security obligations, the solution can be deployed entirely on-premise, so trusts keep complete control over sensitive patient records without sending data off-site.

Looking ahead

Events like Rewired reinforce that digital transformation in the NHS isn’t about chasing novelty: it’s about deploying practical, secure and highly auditable tools that solve immediate operational bottlenecks.

A huge thank you to the organisers of Digital Health Rewired for putting on a fantastic event, and to everyone who stopped by “The Shed” to share their challenges and ideas. The digital frontline is moving forward rapidly, and we’re excited to keep building the technology that supports it.

To learn more about how Toca.health drives operational capacity and interoperability across NHS trusts, visit toca.health.