Digital Health Newsletter - 5 March 2026

This week’s £250 million NHS Shared Business Services communication framework is a step towards modernising how the NHS communicates.

It gives NHS organisations an easier route to buy tools for patient engagement, such as messaging platforms, portals, chatbots and apps.

The aim is to nudge organisations further towards paper-lite models and reduce stubborn DNAs, but although frameworks can help simplify access, they don’t automatically guarantee better outcomes.

Governance, interoperability and frontline adoption will determine whether this becomes a meaningful shift in patient engagement.

Procurement can open the door, but transformation depends on what happens after the contract is signed.

Tammy Lovell, Editor

NHS SBS launches £250m communication framework 📡

NHS Shared Business Services has launched a £250 million procurement framework agreement to help the NHS improve the way it communicates with its patients and service users through technology.

Organisations can use the framework agreement to procure technology and support for essential communications such as appointment notifications and reminders.

Other services that can be procured via the framework include workforce communication such as one and two-way mobile audio messaging and digital pagers, call handling via call centres and the provision of patient portals and smartphone apps.

York and Scarborough delays Nervecentre EPR go-live ⌛

York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has delayed the go-live of its Nervecentre electronic patient record (EPR) system.

A trust board paper, published in October 2025, said that the EPR would be rolled out in February 2026, with work underway to “customise key elements to ensure the system meets the needs of clinicians” ahead of the planned go-live.

However, a spokesperson for York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust told Digital Health News that the go-live has been postponed until a new go-live date is agreed.

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