What NHS boards say, and what they have done.
A read of every English health system's latest board papers, scoring the nine priorities of the 10 Year Health Plan against actual delivery. Where importance and delivery are furthest apart, what moved since the last round, and what it means if you sell software into the NHS or sit on one of its boards. England only, October 2026 edition.
The NHS has a national plan. The 10 Year Health Plan for England, published in July 2025, sets the priorities every health system is meant to deliver. This paper measures two things against that plan, system by system: how much importance the board places on each priority, and how far it has actually got. Both are read from the systems' own board papers.
The October round reassessed 1,251 organisation-theme cells across 139 organisations. Including four organisations held on earlier packs, the published dataset contains 1,212 evidenced scores across 143 organisations in all 42 English health systems, including all 36 integrated care boards. Every score rescored from an October pack rests on a verbatim quote and a page reference, checked against the pack, and the round was independently audited. One finding runs through it: across the nine priorities, national importance runs higher than national delivery, and the gap is widest by a distance on finance, where it grew this quarter to 3.6 points. The radar is refreshed each quarter. The July 2026 edition remains available.
What is inside
- What moved since the last round, and why most scores did not
- How the radar measures and scores, and the rules that keep every score tied to a real board pack
- The overall picture: high importance, middling delivery, and the finance gap that shapes every other decision
- AI, visible in 134 of 143 organisations, with ambient voice the one technology moving from trial into routine use
- Digital records, nearly everywhere but mostly early, and the single patient record, real in a few systems and missing in most
- Cyber security, named as a risk in many packs, independently assured in few, and no organisation above 6 out of 10
- What it means if you sell software to the NHS, and what it means if you sit on an NHS board
Who it is for
Founders and commercial leaders of growth-stage software and AI companies selling into the NHS in England. Boards and investors who want an honest read on where the system is putting its weight and where it is falling short. NHS leaders who want to see their own system against the national picture. It is a commercial and governance read, not regulatory or legal advice.
Written from an operating perspective
By Andrew Wyatt, founder of Ortent Advisory. Four exits over three decades (Lotus to IBM, Paragon to Phone.com, Apertio to Nokia $240M, Clearswift to Lyceum) plus CGO and COO seats in digital health and life sciences at Sapio Sciences and Lumeon. The paper pairs with the interactive map, where you can open any system and read the quoted evidence behind its scores.