During the UK’s Autumn Budget, Rachel Reeves has unveiled further technology investments for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and, separately, the establishment of 250 neighbourhood healthcare centres.
Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer for the UK’s Labour Government, took centre stage on 26 November to deliver the budget in the House of Commons.
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Addressing healthcare-related intents in the budget, Reeves said the government plans to deliver 100 of 250 new community health centres by 2030. Rollout for the centres will begin in some of the nation’s most deprived areas, including Birmingham and Truro, Cornwall.
Reeves told MPs that the health centres will help people receive treatment outside of hospitals and get “better, faster care where they live”.
The plans echo part of the government’s 10-year plan to shift the NHS towards becoming more of a community-centric care service. Under the initiative, the centres will bring together GPs, nurses, dentists and pharmacists under a single roof in community settings, with the goal to cut waiting times and reduce strain on hospitals.
Orlando Agrippa, CEO of health tech company Sanius Health, praised the government’s plans, calling them a “transformative step” for patient care and health equity and to make it so that patients would be less burdened by having to “organise their lives around the NHS”.
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By GlobalData“This isn’t just a stopgap for backlog, it could be a real moment for equitable, tech-enabled, community-led care,” Agrippa said.
Kat James, managing director of NHS telemedicine company Consult Connect, called the community health centre plans “bold and overdue”.
She said: “We already work with half the NHS, and we see every day that if you connect community and hospital teams early for virtual advice, community clinicians identify the correct pathway first time — and for over 70% of those cases it means they stay in the neighbourhood. Hospital becomes the last resort — not the first option.”
On the pharmaceutical side, the cost of prescriptions will be frozen for a year from April 2026. The government said this will help maintain patient access to medicines.
The day had got off to bad start for the UK government. Ahead of Reeves’ announcement, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch picked her moment to scold Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) inadvertently leaked details of the budget ahead of its announcement.
Outside of healthcare-related items in the budget, Reeves outlined plans to raise the minimum wage and scrap the two-child benefit cap.
Focus on making the UK more attractive for business
The chancellor acknowledged that outdated limits on venture investment tax incentives and employee share option schemes had been restricting the growth of UK life science companies. Therefore, the government is extending the venture investment tax incentives, introducing UK listings relief, a three year exemption from stamp duty, and reserve tax for companies who choose to list their companies in Britain.
On these plans, Reeves struck a bullish tone around the Labour Party’s intentions to “champion innovation, not stifle it”, telling MPs that Labour’s vision was to make Britain a leading destination for businesses to “startup, scaleup, and stay”.
The UK BioIndustry Association (BIA) welcomed Reeves’ plans.
“BIA has long argued that outdated limits on venture investment tax incentives and employee share options are holding back the scale-up of life science companies, so we are delighted that the Chancellor has chosen to extend these today,” said Jane Wall, the BIA’s managing director.
However, Wall also said the BIA was “very concerned” about increases to business rates on expensive workspaces. She claimed that life science companies would be “unfairly and disproportionately affected”, due to their inherent need for expensive laboratory facilities alongside office space.
“The Chancellor and this government have consistently highlighted life sciences and biotech as a key economic opportunity for the UK, yet domestic and global headwinds continue to create significant challenges and uncertainty for the sector,” Wall continued.
The budget’s healthcare omissions
Beyond the positive reception for the healthcare aims touted by Reeves, some observers were left disheartened by areas not given due consideration in the chancellor’s budget.
Reeves also promised that £4.9bn ($6.4bn), which would be saved due to a range of efficiencies in the budget, would be spent on GP appointments, staff. A £300m ($396.8m) allocation towards technology for improving patient services was also earmarked.
However, according to Gerard Hanratty, head of health and life sciences at UK&I law firm Browne Jacobson, while the Chancellor faces tough decisions between plugging funding shortfalls and implementing ‘efficiency’ cuts in every budget, the country “must find a way of helping the NHS with its own self-care”.
He explained: “Between these binary choices is an opportunity missed to leverage the global reputation, infrastructure and expertise of the NHS to attract inward investment that can help secure its long-term sustainability and integrate innovation – while remaining true to its founding principles.”
Health software company Camascope’s CEO, Kehan Zhou, expressed disappointment that more attention was not given to adult social care, and highlighted that providers are “increasingly forced to do more with less”.
“Technology can help. Digitising medication records alone can safeguard patients and free up time for clinicians to deliver more personal care, while reducing costly errors. But we need to go further,” Zhou said.
“Social care needn’t be the problem child of the health system. With the right focus and incentives, it can be a major source of opportunity and a driver of economic growth.”
