Key challenges for healthcare businesses in 2025
The top five areas that health-orientated firms should consider as part of their strategy in the next 12 months
The UK healthcare system already faces a number of challenges, with factors such as an aging population, growing health inequality and ongoing staff shortages placing unprecedented demand on increasingly stretched services.
For businesses operating within the healthcare sector, these challenges are compounded by additional obstacles that can make it very difficult to introduce innovative solutions to the market.
Healthtech and healthcare leaders that are eager to scale and grow their businesses in 2025 should be aware of the five key challenges outlined below.
1. Barriers to adoption
One of the primary challenges for businesses operating in the healthcare sector is the difficulty getting new technologies and products adopted by the NHS.
The bureaucratic and fragmented nature of the NHS at an organisational level, makes it incredibly challenging for companies to navigate the tender process and get their solutions implemented across multiple trusts. For example, a business could invest significant time and resource into filling out hundreds of pages of paperwork to tender for one trust, but then have to repeat the process for each and every trust they want to work with – and there are currently 215 NHS trusts across the UK!
While there are NHS framework agreements available, which enable suppliers to submit a single tender for multi-trust contracts, these framework agreements are generally available for the renewal of existing services – waste management, cleaning supplies, pharmaceutical supplies etc. It is less likely that such frameworks would be available for disruptive and novel services that few, if any, NHS trusts have already contracted.
This not only limits innovative UK businesses’ ability to scale their proposition, but ultimately, has a negative impact on patient outcomes.
The procurement and supply chain functions of the NHS are a sensitive subject politically, especially following revelations around Covid-19 procurement practices, but government-led policy change is desperately needed for these adoption barriers to be lifted across the board.
2. Demonstrating value
The increasing scrutiny with which NHS contracts are quite rightly approached means that businesses have to be incredibly clear when demonstrating both the clinical effectiveness and cost efficiency of their products and services.
Leaders of healthcare and health-tech businesses must make their proposition compelling, but aligning the solutions on offer with government health objectives and the overarching policy goals can improve likelihood of adoption.
3. Strength in data
Data-driven innovation is key to addressing modern healthcare challenges, but data itself presents both an opportunity and a challenge for businesses operating within the healthcare sector.
Regions of the UK such as Greater Manchester, where shared care data records have been developed, benefit from multiple trusts having access to the same records, where they are then able to identify trends, test interventions and ultimately, improve patient outcomes.
However this is not a standard that is met across the entirety of the UK, and the lack of access to nationwide data means that some technologies (e.g. those that use data to inform preventative medicine) are not being implemented as effectively as they could be.
There are understandable concerns around data privacy and security, but businesses that successfully harness this information can lead advancements in predictive and preventative healthcare, driving clinical improvements and cost efficiencies that benefit the entire UK healthcare provision.
4. Preventative care investment
This leads neatly into investment in preventative care.
Currently, healthcare spending is skewed heavily towards primary and acute care, with only 4% of budgets allocated to preventative measures. By investing more money into early diagnosis and/or shifting resources towards prevention, it would reduce the burden placed on the NHS by chronic illnesses and preventable diseases.
This strategic step-change could also represent a cultural shift towards a more proactive approach to healthcare, improving awareness and education for better health outcomes and long term cost savings.
Data-driven prevention models, such as those that identify high-risk patients for early and targeted intervention, have shown promise, but businesses need access to data in order for these products to work.
5. Patient empowerment
Education and awareness also has a significant role to play in patient empowerment.
An enhanced ability for patients to take ownership of their care would be a transformative step towards a more sustainable healthcare system, but the technology and data infrastructure must be in place to support it.
Digital tools, such as applications that host patient records, are emerging as valuable resources that enable collaboration between patient and care provider, but the businesses offering these tools must overcome all of the challenges above, as well as the accessibility issues presented by a lack of digital literacy in some segments of the population.
Looking ahead
As healthcare businesses navigate these challenges, the need for collaboration, innovation, and targeted investment is clear.
By prioritising prevention and patient empowerment, the UK healthcare sector could become more efficient and more effective, with better patient outcomes. But health-tech and healthcare leaders must overcome the hurdles of adoption and access to data to be well-positioned to succeed in 2025 and beyond.
If you are a leader in the healthcare or health-tech space with ambitions to scale your business, we would love to learn more about you and your vision for growth:
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