Digital Health in the UK 

The report, Digital Health in the UK: An industry study for the Office of Life Sciences, acknowledges that digital health innovations are necessary for the future of efficient healthcare service delivery. Specifically, if the identified market challenges can be resolved, over time, then digital health advances have the potential to help increase access, decrease healthcare system costs and improve health outcomes.

The report focuses on the UK in the context of the global market, drawing on examples from other countries to identify the challenges to growth, barriers to adoption, shifting dynamics and how the emergent industry is developing.

Key findings

• The global market for digital health is worth £23bn in 2014 and is expected to almost double to £43bn by 2018
• The UK market size for digital health is £2bn and is expected to grow to £2.9bn by 2018, predominately driven by mHealth apps
• The UK represented a c. 9% share of the global health market in 2014, which the report predicts will fall to c.7% by 2018, due to strong growth in other markets
• Digital health systems represent the largest market both globally and in the UK, where they contribute 66% of digital health sales
• The most promising market for growth is mHealth apps, which although is currently the smallest digital health market sub-sector, is predicted to grow at 35% in the UK and 49% globally from 2014-8.
   

Overall, the report considers the UK to be well positioned in many elements of digital health and by addressing the below challenges it has the potential to grow into a global leader.

1. Addressing a skills shortage in health analytics
2. Building managerial skills within the NHS to better understand the potential value of digital solutions across the healthcare cycle
3. Improving clarity on how to access, transfer and analyse healthcare data (including the necessary incentives and information governance procedures)
4. Improving reimbursement policy to accelerate the use of digital health solutions
5. Building capabilities to commercialise and scale up companies in the UK digital industry