Innovation Offers Hope for NHS Challenges

Wales has an opportunity to adopt new methods of working to help create a more sustainable health and care system. The challenge facing the NHS is not simply one of capacity, but of how services can operate differently to improve outcomes for patients, support the workforce, and make better use of innovation across the system.

More than 796,000 people in Wales are currently waiting for NHS treatment, and the number waiting over 36 weeks is now 22.2 times higher than before the pandemic. Only 63% of A&E patients are seen within four hours, significantly below the 95% target. For patients, these are not just performance measures. They are waits for answers, delays to treatment, and uncertainty at a time when people often feel at their most vulnerable.

Cancer shows why capacity alone will not be enough. Between 2002 and 2022, the number of new cancer cases in Wales rose by almost a third, increasing from around 16,000 to just over 21,000 diagnoses. Over half of all cancer cases in 2022 occurred in people aged 70 and over. Breast, colorectal and lung cancers make up more than half of all diagnoses. This is one of the biggest pressures facing the system, and demand will only grow as the population ages.

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The latest BMA figures show that only 61.3% of patients started cancer treatment within 62 days, well below the 80% target. These delays have real consequences, with evidence from Cancer Research UK showing that a four-week delay to cancer treatment can increase mortality risk by 6-8%. Speed of diagnosis and treatment is only part of the problem. People do not always experience cancer care equally. Too often, access to diagnosis, treatment and support can differ depending on where someone lives or their background, rather than clinical need. Cancer mortality in Wales is reported as 54% higher in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived.

Addressing this requires a more targeted, data-driven approach to identifying where variation exists, understanding what is driving delays, and accelerating the adoption of proven innovations that can improve pathways and outcomes.

How adoption changes care

Innovation must be understood properly. It is not about adding more technology into an already pressured system for the sake of it. It is about identifying where the system is stuck, where delays are happening, and where proven solutions can help people move through care more safely and efficiently. Wales cannot improve outcomes and resilience by relying on traditional approaches alone. It needs faster adoption of proven innovation across health and social care, supported by the partnerships, evidence and implementation routes that allow good ideas to move beyond individual pilots.

Cardiff and Vale’s Rapid Diagnosis Clinic reduced average referral-to-diagnosis times from 84.2 days to 6.2 days in its first year, showing how pathway redesign can make a tangible difference when focused around patient need. In north Wales, an AI-driven waiting list validation tool co-developed by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and digital health company EBO has used SMS and chatbot technology to help confirm whether patients still need treatment. During pilot phases, the tool removed 6-7% of patients from waiting lists. That kind of innovation will not solve the backlog alone, but it shows how targeted tools can release capacity when they are applied to a clear system problem.

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Wider evidence also points to the potential. In England, recent statistics from the Health Innovation Network suggests NHS productivity increased by 2.7% in 2024/25, supported by innovation and changes in the way services are delivered. The same analysis points to the potential of AI tools to reduce administrative burden and free up more clinical time, including enabling clinicians to spend nearly a quarter more time with patients and cutting documentation in A&E by over half.

The point is not technology for its own sake. The real opportunity is adoption. Understanding which innovations are right for which pathways, supporting them with the right evidence and business case, and making sure they can be implemented at the pace and scale needed. This is particularly important as Wales invests in surgical and diagnostic hubs. These hubs will create extra capacity, but their impact will be greater if they are designed around new ways of working – using data, digital tools, pathway redesign and partnership with industry to reduce duplication, improve flow and help patients move through care faster.

Connecting system need with innovation

Wales doesn’t only need more innovation; it needs a stronger route to adoption. That opportunity is also bigger than health. Wales has a strong life sciences sector, employing more than 13,000 people across approximately 300 companies and generating around £3.6bn in annual turnover. That gives Wales a foundation not only to adopt innovation, but to develop, test and scale solutions that respond to the needs of its own health and social care system.

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Every innovation successfully adopted in Wales improves the lives of patients while also strengthening one of our highest-value sectors. At a time when productivity and economic growth are high on the political agenda, this matters. Recent statements from Adam Price, the Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy have stated an ambition to halve Wales’s productivity gap with the rest of the UK within ten years and create a new Welsh innovation and development agency. Health innovation sits directly within that ambition. It can support outcomes for patients while also creating high-value jobs, attracting investment, and bringing new expertise closer to the frontline.

Innovation alone will not fix health care in Wales. But paired with the right partnerships and a genuine route to adoption, it is one of the few levers left that can meet rising demand without simply asking an already stretched workforce to do more with less. That is the case Life Sciences Hub Wales exists to make in practice: connecting system need with proven innovation, bringing partners together across sectors, and helping good ideas spread at the scale and speed the moment demands.

If Wales can combine political ambition, NHS leadership and faster adoption of proven innovation, we have an opportunity not simply to improve services, but to build a healthier nation and a stronger economy. That is an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.