Listening Must Become a Clinical Intervention In Its Own Right
Every year, the Patients Association hears directly from people navigating health and social care. We hear from individuals waiting years for treatment, patients repeating their story across disconnected services and carers struggling to co-ordinate appointments.
Our 2026 Patient Experience Survey, based on the experiences of more than 800 patients across the UK, paints a picture that is both deeply concerning and, in many respects, avoidable. The Government’s 10 Year Health Plan and the NHS Modernisation Bill rightly place patient voice, shared decision-making, and partnership at the heart of reform. The ambition is correct. But our survey provides an important baseline against which progress must now be measured.
Patients are telling us clearly that they do not yet feel like partners in their care.
Only 41% of respondents felt like an equal partner in decisions about treatment. Half said their care was poorly coordinated between services. More than half struggled to access both GP and hospital appointments. Behind those figures are human consequences.
Three quarters of patients told us delays worsened their physical health. Almost the same number said delays reduced their quality of life.
When appointments are rushed, services disconnected, and communication inconsistent, even the best clinicians struggle to deliver genuinely patient-centred care. Patients end up carrying the burden of co-ordination themselves. They chase referrals, repeat histories, interpret conflicting information, and navigate systems that often do not join up around them.
This is where I believe there is a major opportunity for HealthTech companies, system leaders, and patient organisations to work in genuine partnership.
Technology alone will never solve the NHS’s challenges. But thoughtfully designed innovation can create the conditions for better conversations, better co-ordination, and better experiences.
Our survey findings on digital care demonstrate both the potential and the risks. Many patients value the NHS App for accessing prescriptions and records. Yet others described confusion, inconsistent functionality, inaccessible interfaces, and the growing sense that digital tools are replacing, rather than supporting, human interaction.
Patients told us they want digital services that are connected, intuitive, accessible, and genuinely responsive. They want systems that “talk to one another”. They want two-way communication, not one-way notifications. They want flexibility, not barriers.
That matters enormously as the NHS accelerates digital transformation.
If innovation is implemented without considering health inequalities, accessibility, and patient confidence, we risk creating a two-tier system where some patients are empowered and others excluded. Our survey highlighted concerns from older patients, people with disabilities, and those with sensory impairments who felt current approaches often overlook their needs.
This is why genuine patient partnership must be standard practice at every level of the health and care system.
Patients should not simply be consulted once technologies are already developed or procurement decisions already made. They should help shape the design, implementation, and evaluation of services from the beginning.
For the HealthTech sector, this presents both a responsibility and an opportunity.
We know that the companies ABHI represents are already developing innovations that improve diagnosis, support clinicians, reduce administrative burden, and help patients manage their care more effectively. Many are actively committed to tackling inequalities and improving patient outcomes. But the next phase of innovation must go further than efficiency alone and must be done with patients at the start of the process
The technologies that will have the greatest impact are those that strengthen relationships within care, not weaken them.
That means designing systems that help clinicians spend more meaningful time with patients. It means improving interoperability so patients are not forced to repeat their story multiple times. It means ensuring digital pathways remain accessible to those with different communication needs, literacy levels, or disabilities. And it means measuring success not only through throughput or activity metrics, but through whether patients genuinely feel heard, informed, and involved.
One of the clearest findings from our survey is that communication failures remain pervasive across the NHS. Patients spoke about unanswered phone calls, appointment letters arriving after appointments had taken place, and systems that offered no route for two-way dialogue.
These may sound like operational details. But for patients, they shape trust in the entire system. Good communication is not peripheral to care quality. It is care quality.
The same applies to care co-ordination. When services fail to communicate with one another, patients experience fragmented care journeys that can be stressful, unsafe, and deeply disempowering. Half of respondents to our survey said their care was not well co-ordinated.
Fixing this requires cultural change, operational reform, and smarter use of technology working together.
Encouragingly, the policy direction increasingly recognises this. The challenge now is implementation.
At the Patients Association, we believe our survey indicates three immediate priorities.
First, asking patients what matters to them must become a consistent and accountable practice across the NHS. Shared decision-making cannot remain rhetoric.
Second, care co-ordination must improve significantly, particularly for those living with long-term conditions, disabilities, or complex needs.
Third, access must remain a national priority. Long waits are not only inconvenient; they worsen outcomes, undermine confidence, and change lives.
None of these challenges can be solved by one organisation acting alone.
The future of patient-centred care depends on collaboration between the NHS, industry, charities, clinicians, policymakers, and, critically, patients themselves.
The Patients Association will continue ensuring patient voices are heard loudly and consistently within those conversations.
Our survey shows that patients know what they need from their healthcare. The question now is whether the system is ready to listen.
The 10 Year health Plan puts patients right at the heart of change and the Patients Association can help bridge the gap between patients and the healthcare system. We partner with organisations to ensure real patient insight and experiences shapes services, policy and practice.
We’d love to hear more about the work you’re doing and explore how we could support you. You can contact me at rachel.power@patients-association.org.uk.
Rachel Power is the Chief Executive of The Patients Association