28.09.2026
Earlier this month Raj Summan, NHS Practice Lead at Morson Praxis attended HTN Live.
With over 30+ years’ experience driving digital transformation, we were keen to catch up with Raj to hear more on his key takeaways from the event:
“HTN Live provided a valuable opportunity to hear from NHS leaders, Consultancies and Transformation teams about both the opportunities and the practical challenges facing digital health.
“For me, four themes stood out – and they closely reflect the conversations we are increasingly having with NHS organisations through our work at Morson Praxis.”
1. Integration remains fundamental – moving towards a more joined-up patient record.
One of the strongest themes was the continuing importance of interoperability and integration across health and care.
The NHS has made significant investment in digital systems, but information remains distributed across multiple organisations, care settings and clinical platforms. The direction of travel is increasingly towards giving clinicians a more complete view of the patient, irrespective of where that information was originally recorded.
Shared Care Records have already created an important foundation for this at regional and Integrated Care System level. The next challenge is how we connect and leverage these capabilities more consistently, national teams are rightly looking at what exists currently and how this can be expanded to achieve a Single Patient Record.
This is particularly important as models of care become increasingly integrated through neighbourhood working, community services, primary care, mental health, acute services and the voluntary sector. The technology needs to support the way care is increasingly being delivered rather than reinforce traditional organisational boundaries.
For Morson Praxis, there is an important role in helping organisations understand not simply which systems need connecting, but the underlying workflows, information requirements and operating models that integration needs to support.
2. Human factors need to become a bigger part of digital transformation
A second reflection was that human factors still do not receive the prominence they deserve in many conversations about digital transformation.
We understandably talk about technology, architecture, data, AI and implementation. But ultimately the success of digital transformation depends upon how people interact with those technologies in real clinical environments.
That means understanding usability, cognitive load, clinical workflow, trust, adoption and the unintended consequences that can arise when technology is introduced into already complex working environments.
This becomes even more important as AI and automation move further into frontline care. The question is no longer simply, “Does the technology work?” We also need to ask, “How does it change the way people work, make decisions and ultimately deliver care?”
This is an area Morson Praxis is actively exploring through our work on AI Scribe and Ambient Voice Technology, where we are bringing a human-factors perspective alongside digital transformation, change and adoption. Our focus is not only on the functionality of the technology, but on understanding how clinicians interact with it in real-world settings – including trust and confidence, cognitive load, usability, changes to clinical workflows and decision-making, and the evolving relationship between clinicians and AI.
By evaluating these factors alongside adoption and measurable benefits, we can better understand what enables AI technologies to become safely and effectively embedded into everyday clinical practice. This helps ensure that AI is not simply deployed as another technology, but is implemented in a way that supports clinicians, releases time for patient care and delivers sustainable improvements for both staff and patients.
3. Moving from strategy to delivery
There is no shortage of ambition across NHS digital transformation. The challenge is converting that ambition into practical improvements for frontline services.
Transformation is difficult. Organisations are operating under significant financial and operational pressures, technology estates are complex and clinical teams understandably have limited capacity for change.
But waiting for perfect conditions can also prevent progress.
One of the strongest messages I took from the day was the importance of getting on with the job in hand, identifying genuine service problems, understanding the barriers that are getting in the way, and working alongside frontline teams to find practical solutions.
At Morson Praxis, this is increasingly how we approach transformation – combining strategic thinking with hands-on delivery. Rather than trying to solve everything at once, we work with NHS teams to identify and work through problems, prioritise where change can make the greatest difference, and take practical, incremental steps forward. Each improvement provides an opportunity to learn, demonstrate value and build confidence, creating momentum for the next stage of change. Over time, these incremental improvements can add up to meaningful and sustainable transformation for staff, services and patients.
4. Small improvements can create the foundations for bigger transformation
Not every transformation needs to begin with a large programme.
Sometimes removing one unnecessary process, simplifying a referral pathway, improving access to information at the point of care or giving clinicians a few minutes back during each patient interaction can create significant benefits when multiplied across a service.
These smaller interventions can also provide something extremely valuable: evidence. They allow organisations to demonstrate what works, understand what does not, build confidence amongst staff and create momentum for wider change.
For Morson Praxis, the opportunity is to help NHS organisations identify those areas where targeted intervention can make a measurable difference, demonstrate value quickly and then use that learning to inform wider transformation.
“Ultimately, my main reflection from HTN Live was that successful digital transformation requires technology, people and delivery to come together.
“Integration provides the information, human factors help ensure technology works for the people using it, and pragmatic delivery turns ambition into tangible improvements.
“If we keep those three things connected, digital transformation has a much greater chance of delivering what ultimately matters – better experiences for staff and better care for patients.”
Find out more about Morson Praxis’s Health capabilities here >
