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Digital transformation in the health service

It’s all coming up digital: the government’s solution to the woes of the NHS

In November’s budget, the Chancellor unveiled a £300 million package of new capital investment for NHS technology. The package includes funding for digital tools designed to automate administrative tasks, streamline clinical workflows and give staff quicker, more reliable access to patient information. It is a continuation of a now-familiar message: digital transformation is at the heart of the government’s plans to modernise the health service and make it fit for the future.

The government also announced plans to create 250 neighbourhood health centres – an initiative aimed at ending the ‘postcode lottery’ of healthcare access. These centres are intended to operate as digitally enabled community hubs that will bring together GPs, nurses, dentists and pharmacists to provide end-to-end care and tailored support. As such, their success is tied directly to the government’s broader digitalisation agenda.

Construction of the centres will follow a ‘new approach’ between the public and private sectors, drawing on both repurposed estates and new-build sites. However, the physical infrastructure is only half the story. The model relies on shared digital tools that allow health, social care and other local services to work together seamlessly. This creates significant opportunities for public-private collaboration not only in the construction, but also in the delivery, integration and ongoing support of the digital systems that will underpin these centres.

This reframing of the NHS as a neighbourhood, rather than national, health service signals that ministers see a community-centred, digitally powered model as essential to curing the NHS’ longstanding issues. Ministers also believe it will facilitate its long-term viability, particularly in light of the growing pressure on the health service stemming from the UK’s rapidly ageing population and the growing number of people living with complex conditions.

Achieving high quality and consistent access to community services across the country will depend on harmonious digital capability across regions. Many NHS trusts still operate disparate legacy systems that limit interoperability, impede collaborative decision-making and prevent seamless access to patient data. For neighbourhood health centres to function as intended, central government must set out a clear, unified digital strategy that individual trusts can implement at pace, ensuring that local demographics and existing infrastructure are properly accounted for.

New data shows that national direction can drive adoption. NHS England reported that more than eight million people submitted a GP request online in October – up 21% from the previous month and 68% year-on-year. This increase demonstrates that when investment, professional willingness and patient buy-in align, digital tools can rapidly become embedded in everyday care. The rise of the NHS’s ‘digital front door’ offers a blueprint for what could be achieved with the new neighbourhood centres.

The government is betting that digitalisation will aid people’s access to the health service and improve patient outcomes. By pairing investment in digital infrastructure with the rollout of neighbourhood health centres, ministers are seeking to reshape both the sites of care and the systems that support it. Whether the strategy succeeds will depend not only on funding and planning, but also on collaboration with private sector specialists as a crucial partner to government in achieving its objectives.

Please contact Sophie Duley via sophie@gkstrategy.com if you would like to discuss the government’s ambitions for digitalisation in the health service in more detail.

Ofsted hopes new inspections approach will ease pressure on education providers

Ofsted has now begun inspecting schools, early years settings and further education providers under a new education inspection framework. The changes, in effect from 10 November 2025, are intended to make inspection clearer and more consistent. The new framework is also designed to give more granular detail to parents on a provider’s performance and to reduce the workload and pressure on staff created by inspections. Ofsted has said that it will prioritise volunteers for full inspections between 10 November and the end of 2025, which will give other providers a grace period to familiarise themselves with the new regime.

The new framework will place increased emphasis on inclusion, to ensure that the experiences of vulnerable children and those with SEND are assessed, as well as highlighting achievement as a separate category. The evaluation areas that inspectors will focus on are:

  • inclusion
  • curriculum and teaching
  • achievement
  • attendance and behaviour
  • personal development and well-being
  • leadership and governance

While Ofsted has said that it will continue to assess the effectiveness of a provider’s safeguarding measures, it will not change its assessment process in this area. As a result, safeguarding will continue to be reported separately on a binary ‘Met / Not met’ basis rather than being allocated a rating.

The most significant difference between the new framework and the previous one is that it will forgo single-word judgements on the overall quality of providers. These judgements had led to serious concerns from industry bodies, such as the National Association of Head Teachers, about staff wellbeing, following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry. Instead, inspection outcomes will be presented as a report card setting out separate ratings for each area of focus ranging from ‘exceptional’ to ‘urgent improvement’.

While consulting on the report card system, Ofsted said the new ratings will enable parents to differentiate more easily between providers with the top three ratings replacing ‘outstanding’ and ‘good’. Given the vast majority of schools are rated as either ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’, the introduction of an additional rating is likely to be hugely beneficial to the highest performing schools, allowing them to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

The framework reaffirms Ofsted’s principles that inspections should support improvement and emphasises the need for greater collaboration between inspection teams and the staff working at education providers. To ensure this, the framework includes a formal code of conduct, requiring inspectors to act with professionalism, courtesy and respect. It also requires providers to be open, transparent and honest in the evidence they supply.

During the consultation process Ofsted also confirmed that the new framework would reduce the pressure of an inspection on school leaders. This will be done by having additional inspectors to enable the lead inspector to act as a more consistent point of contact, and by shortening the length of inspection days.

Ofsted has also embedded mental health awareness into its inspector training and has introduced a provider contact helpline, a national team to help with any well-being concerns during an inspection, and an ‘inspection welfare, support and guidance hub’.

An independent evaluation process has also been launched to monitor the implementation of the new inspection framework. This process will gather evidence from education providers on whether Ofsted’s aims have been realised (i.e. whether the framework has sufficiently reduced the workload on staff and whether inspections produce a more accurate reading of a provider’s performance). As part of the evaluation process, interviews will be conducted with providers in Spring 2026 to understand any early or unexpected impact arising from the implementation of the framework. A rolling survey will also be established in 2026-27 to gather the views of education providers on inspections with a final evaluation report published in 2027.

While the inspection process is likely to result in higher scrutiny of a provider’s performance in individual areas, it is also likely to give high-quality providers a clearer platform to demonstrate good practices. It is imperative that providers align their internal processes to the new framework’s core areas of focus. Monitoring their own performance against these areas will ensure that providers are well-equipped to achieve high ratings once full inspections begin under the new framework.

If you would like to discuss Ofsted’s new inspection framework in more detail, please reach out to Joshua Owolabi at joshua@gkstrategy.com.

Labour Party Conference 2025 Takeaways

As the party departs Liverpool, still clearly grappling with the challenges of what being the party of government brings, we’ve learned a lot about the direction the party is going. Here are our quick takeaways.

Keir Starmer has shored up his position…for now. With the noise going into this conference all about the leadership challenge from Manchester’s Andy Burnham, the sight of his early departure from conference before the PM’s speech will please No.10. In what could have been a perilous week for the PM, strong reaffirmation of the Chancellor’s fiscal rules, coupled with strong defences from cabinet ministers and aides, resulted in Burnham conceding that Starmer is the “right person for the job”. You can’t help but add the line “for the moment…” with other rising stars like Shabana Mahmood and Wes Streeting clearly biding their time.

Labour is taking the fight to reform. In what was probably his strongest speech as party leader, Starmer clearly set the parameters for British politics. For him, this is about Labour vs Reform. Decency vs division. Ultimately, the class-conscious speech was a deliberate attempt to win back the working class that has increasingly abandoned the party over the years to the likes of Reform. In this more combative approach, he also decried Reform’s policies on immigration as “racist”. A punchy line of attack which worked in the room, but he will hope doesn’t unravel as a perceived attack on all Reform sympathisers who are doubting the centrist parties’ ability to deliver.

The looming budget has not got any easier. In media briefings over the weekend, and in her speech, Rachel Reeves continued the manifesto commitment to not raise taxes on working people. Whilst at the same time, to appease critical voices in the Labour party, she is flirting with the idea of more spending – both on infrastructure and lifting the two-child limit. She said she is a chancellor that wants to invest. None of this sounds like a chancellor staring down the prospect of having to find £30bn in November to plug the gap predicted by the OBR.

The difference a Labour government makes. This has been the underlying strategic narrative of the conference to fend off criticism there is no difference between this government and a Conservative one. We saw speech after speech rattle off long lists of tangible activities the government has taken across the policy spectrum.  We can expect much more of this narrative to come, together with a clear focus on ‘showing’ that delivery to the electorate, rather than just ‘telling‘ them.

Policy spotlight: the future of the UK food system

 

https://gkstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/GK-Strategy-Policy-Spotlight-Report-The-Future-of-the-UK-Food-System-September-2025.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GK Strategy – Policy Spotlight Report – The Future of the UK Food System

 

GK is delighted to share its first policy spotlight report on the food and agriculture sectors where geo-political, economic and health priorities increasingly collide.

From tackling obesity and diet-related ill-heath to food security and investor appetite for agri-tech innovation, the government’s policy agenda is ambitious. Our report explores:

 

  • The future of food and health: analysis of the government’s more interventionist stance on obesity, sugar reform and the development of a new national food strategy.
  • Innovation in agriculture: why agri-tech is now a priority in the UK’s industrial strategy and where the opportunities lie for businesses to partner with government.
  • Investor sentiment: how food, agriculture and natural capital are performing as asset classes and where private capital flow is likely to follow.
  • The view from the US: how the political and regulatory landscape in the US is evolving and how this might shape UK markets.

 

With the government eager to demonstrate delivery and progress towards much-needed economic growth, businesses and investors have a critical window of opportunity to shape policy and regulation. This policy spotlight report highlights where the engagement opportunities lie, how to align with government priorities, and how to mitigate regulatory and political risks while unlocking commercial growth.

To explore the findings of this report in more detail and what they mean for your organisations, please reach out to thea@gkstrategy.com.

Anchors aweigh: A way for private investors to play potential Fannie, Freddie IPOs

By Erin Caddell, Anchor Advisors in partnership with GK Strategy

President Donald Trump’s second White House term has sparked discussion that his Administration might return the two U.S. Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) to full public ownership after more than 16 years under federal control following their bailouts in the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. In May, Trump said his Administration is giving “serious consideration” to conducting IPOs for the GSEs. And in late July Bloomberg reported that the Administration was holding meetings with bankers interested in underwriting the IPOs.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s vital place in the US mortgage system make them compelling assets for investors to look at should the IPOs move forward. Critical to the nation’s economy, the complexities of these entities and the market they serve present challenges necessitating a multi-year transition period to full private ownership. As Fannie and Freddie have swept billions of dollars in profit back to the government in the post-conservatorship era, both companies would need to build up their capital to stand as independent companies. The GSEs’ equity combined represent only 2% of their total assets, far less than traditional banks or mortgage finance firms.

This is where anchor investors could play a role. Anchor investors (we promise we do not like this idea just because we also have Anchor in our name) take meaningful equity stakes in companies preparing to go public, agreeing to hold the positions for a given period post-IPO as a sign of confidence for other investors and to lessen the fundraising need for the company. For instance, in the 2022 IPO of Life Insurance Corp. (LIC), India’s largest insurer, anchor investors including Norges Bank (Norway’s sovereign wealth fund) and the Government of Singapore (GIC) investment fund purchased about 25% of the issue in advance of the IPO. Sometimes anchor investors receive a discount on their shares in exchange for taking down large chunks of the IPO and agreeing to hold their shares though a post-IPO lockup period.

One can imagine the appeal to the government of anchor investors in the GSE IPO process, particularly for the Trump Administration, focused as it is on boosting investment in the US. For that matter, any future presidential administration will be attracted to the idea of contributing hundreds of billions to federal coffers in an attempt to offset multi-trillion-dollar federal budget deficits. Anchor investors could allow the government to generate income from early sales early, as the GSE transition plan and public offerings would likely take several years. A combination of domestic and foreign sovereign wealth funds would be most desirable: the domestic players to emphasize the US’ ability to invest in itself; the global investors to highlight the international attraction to the US capital markets. Expressing interest in the GSE privatizations now would give anchor investors a shot of having a seat at the table if the deals come together.

For investors, a day-one commitment to the GSE IPOs would provide a unique opportunity to invest in scale players in the $14 trillion US mortgage market – about 70% of which is supported in some way by Fannie or Freddie. The GSEs operate as critical components of the US mortgage industry infrastructure, setting standards and ensuring liquidity for residential and multi-family mortgage markets. Such “utility” functions have been rewarded with handsome valuation multiples and stock performance across financial services, energy, technology and other sectors, including those whose protective moats are protected by government regulation. Indeed, in the years leading up to the Global Financial Crisis, Fannie and Freddie performed well in the equity markets, though critics argued their accomplishments were driven by overly aggressive balance-sheet practices and lobbying activities.

Risks abound when investing in entities with multi-trillion-dollar balance sheets, as the wipeout of billions of dollars in the GSE’s market caps demonstrated in 2008. Numerous issues must be worked out to return the GSEs to private hands, most notably the current federal backstop on Fannie and Freddie’s combined $7 trillion-plus in debt, the lion’s share of which is backed by the mortgages the two entities guarantee. Even a modest increase in borrowing rates on such a large debt load could result in a big hit to the GSE’s earnings post-IPO, necessitating a long period in which the federal backstop is withdrawn over time.

But these are risks that large, sophisticated investors are well-equipped to navigate. A once-in-a- chance to invest in unique, highly profitable and protected franchises critical to the US economy, and to build goodwill with a President attracted to out-of-the-box deals, make the GSE privatizations an opportunity worth considering.