As we approach 2025, the trajectory is clear. Healthcare and life sciences are steadily laying the groundwork for sustained transformation and innovation. There will be no sudden disruption, no major pivot; but there will be focused efforts to build an agile, resilient NHS with the coming year defined by continued modernisation of technology

We stand at a tipping point in the global progress of cutting-edge healthcare with innovation-inspired transformation set to be right to the fore in 2025.

Next year, I believe we will see steady acceleration across the board in the scope of what can be achieved for better societal health, wellbeing, inclusivity, and sustainability. It will not be swift, sweeping change, more a gradual, responsible, and well-regulated evolution which takes us closer to where we need to be.

If 2024 ushered in fresh possibilities, then 2025 will be their time to flourish, encouraging smarter, more efficient working, while improving lives, supporting decarbonisation and producing better patient outcomes.

I believe the key shifts will be seen in:

1. The drive towards greater patient empowerment

More empowered than ever before, patients in 2025 will continue to expect a natural shift towards greater personalisation, convenience, accessibility, and transparency in how they are able to manage their own healthcare and access support.

Will 2025 mean the end of the patient who benefits from a more traditional approach to care delivery – general practice, hospital care, and evidence-based decision-making? Not just yet, particularly when rural connectivity remains a challenge in many parts of the country, but the evolution is well underway, facilitated by telemedicine, wearable devices, apps, AI-enabled remote monitoring innovations, and more.

Similarly, service providers will be expected to accommodate that more tailored approach – both a win-win for the environment due to less travel emissions, and time-pressured staff who can manage appointments more efficiently.

This continuing shift is effectively a mirror of the times with every sector adopting more customer-centric, ‘on demand’ practices. This decentralised mindset means healthcare being increasingly designed around people, not places.

In other words, an ever more integrated, digital-first healthcare delivery model which will dictate everything going forward, helping people to age well by maintaining physical and mental health while encouraging bespoke exercise and nutrition, boosting vitality and immune health.

It will also serve to reinforce behavioural change, effectively decreasing physical inactivity – a major global health challenge and risk factor for chronic illness and premature death – and heightening adherence to personalised programmes. Essentially, the benefits become inarguable, such is the sheer weight of evidence which the shift towards precision medicine provides.

2. The greater integration of digital infrastructures at scale

Of course, that decentralisation means greater integration of the digital infrastructures required to realise ambitions.

Despite incredible progress being made in many areas, forward-thinking goals remain frustrated by fragmented systems which do not align across the country, making digital advancement challenging. That infrastructure is pivotal to future ambitions, however, and the overhaul is a necessity if we are to have the right foundation for fresh solutions to develop to their full potential, while simultaneously bolstering data security and enhancing efficiency.

New standards for data sharing, analysis and transparency have emerged, improving trust, driving efficiencies, expanding access, and reducing costs.

There will be a growing recognition of the power of ‘digital twins’ – digital replicas of a physical real-world system, object, place, tool, or process. They can be used to simulate anything, from an entire hospital to learn how services are provided, to a single device, like a needle, to understand how it functions under various conditions.

3. Meaningful steps forward in realising the potential of precision medicine

Precision medicine will no doubt make great strides in 2025. Of course, with people now looking to more personalised, digital innovation to manage their own health, the shift away from the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach will continue to gradually become a thing of the past across every aspect of care.

Instead, precision medicine will leverage information about a patient's genes, environment, and lifestyle, to help prevent, diagnose, or treat disease through everything from tailored vaccines and therapies to genetic testing – the aim being to improve how patients are treated, while at the same time generating greater efficiencies and savings.

4. New applications of artificial intelligence (AI)

AI is a predictable part of any innovation list of course. Yes, we know about its abilities when it comes to supplementing NHS expertise, for example, by identifying priority cancer cases quickly, adapting workforce strategies through better workflow automation and optimisation, accelerating routine tasks, and helping to alleviate staff pressures.

However, I believe this will be the year when AI becomes less talked about as a standalone technological development and is instead accepted more and more as simply one component – albeit a key one – underpinning a wide array of human-led healthcare innovations. Large language models like ChatGPT will have a growing role in narrowing the health information digital divide, democratising access to healthcare.

There are new possibilities too; ambient intelligence, or ambient AI, has taken on more relevance to healthcare. Based upon nothing more than the presence of people, ambient AI detects and generates insights by autonomously engaging itself in tasks that can benefit patients.

As another example, intuitive, proactive ambient AI could tap into the huge connectivity of the internet of things (IoT) and its linking of smart devices to perform tasks on behalf of post-operative patients who may be in some discomfort. This could mean noting the date of the operation in Outlook, then independently ordering the patient a taxi home from the hospital, ordering food to be delivered at the right time, and monitoring their heart rate.

5. Convergence between healthcare and life sciences in support of the triple helix

Greater, more direct collaboration between healthcare providers and life sciences innovators – a convergence of sorts – is another expectation for 2025 through the leveraging of data, expertise, and shared insights to drive fresh ideas in patient care and treatment development.

In fact, it has been happening for some time with traditionally siloed walls coming down apace between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers as they increasingly and collectively push for breakthroughs that result in more joined up patient experiences and potentially transformative opportunities.

There will be a renewed emphasis on the importance of building successful health clusters and on the evolution of trusted partnerships between the NHS, industry, and academia. It is to be hoped that these trends will be backed by government initiatives and reputable private capital providers, creating optimal conditions for the development of new business models and delivering savings across the entire health ecosystem.

Despite all of these exciting technologies, there will be one constant in 2025 – people will still be the true drivers of improvement, the NHS thinkers and doers who use their everyday experiences and insights to first identify and then help develop new solutions.

Yes, tech enabled transformation can be the next step in accelerating concepts to where innovators want them to go, but enhancing patient outcomes starts with inspirational ideas.

Of course, the primary focus in the here and now is on ensuring that patients receive the care they need as quickly as possible while better managing demand, saving the NHS both time and resources.

Ultimately, empowering the NHS workforce to develop forward-thinking solutions is still vital as we work to tackle the challenges facing our health and social care services.