NHS: In-house Software Capabilities

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

If the noble Lord has particular companies in mind, he is most welcome to raise them with me. It is important that we look at what NHS teams have done: they have designed, built and maintained national platforms. The NHS app is an example; I am sure that many noble Lords will be familiar with it. That is going to be our digital front door to the NHS. In addition, there is the NHS login and core national infrastructure. All these mean full NHS ownership, governance and control. Supported by £2.5 billion of investment in 2025-26, we are, as the noble Lord seeks, expanding NHS in-house digital capability to reduce the reliance on large suppliers.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, last week’s catastrophic attack on Stryker by Iranian-linked actors paralysed supply of some critical surgical equipment across the NHS. Does the Minister agree that our total reliance on vulnerable third-party global medtech platforms is a serious security risk? How will the Government ensure in-house expertise and procurement software so that the NHS can bypass compromised commercial networks during such crises?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Cyber attacks across our whole government are extremely concerning, and that is why we have built resilience. On health and social care specifically, I can assure the noble Lord that, in 2025-26, we invested £75 million across health and social care; that built on the £375 million invested since 2017. When I had responsibility for the blood transfusion service, my own experience was that, where there was a cyber attack, we had the systems in place.