From measurement to meaningful change: What the NHS Digital Maturity Assessment reveals about the next phase of transformation

As the NHS gains increased visibility into digital maturity and user experience, DMA findings signal where progress is needed

To misquote the incredible author George Orwell ‘Not all blogs are created personal, some are more personal than others’. This one very much falls into the latter category.

After a decade of nudging, pushing, persuading, and, at times, challenging the system, it’s striking to see something long advocated for finally come to fruition.

With the publication of the recent NHS Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA), we now have a clearer view than ever of where organisations stand—and, more importantly, what these findings reveal about the gap between digital ambition and frontline reality.

I began my NHS career as an Information Analyst, embedded in a world where data was integral work, helping drive decisions, actions, investments, and ultimately change. The premise was simple: measure something, understand it, act on it, repeat the cycle. Over time, with tracking and publication, that discipline leads to improvement, accountability, and culture change.

When it comes to the digital space, our ability to measure, analyse, and act has been very inconsistent. Down the decades, attempts to assess digital progress, understand efficacy of investment, and hold those responsible for delivery to account have largely come and gone, often treated with some level of derision from frontline leaders who see these tools as levers for investment or short-term annoyances unlikely to yield long-term benefits. I understand that scepticism, I was one of these frontline leaders for many years and this is how my mind worked at the time.

Roll forward to 2016 and a significant shift in my thinking took place when I discovered KLAS Research and their Arch Collaborative programme. Their work was focussed on understanding the levels of satisfaction our clinical colleagues had with their digital experience. Born out of the United States’ meaningful use investment in EPRs, KLAS sought to understand if this investment translated into happier clinicians.

Spoiler alert – It didn’t! Investment in modern digital technology alone was simply not enough to improve the happiness of the clinicians being asked to use these systems. There was huge variation in satisfaction levels. The factors driving the more successful organisations boiled down to the ability of clinicians to influence the design and configuration of the products to personalise their experience, prioritising usability, and investing in ongoing training. To no surprise, it turns out that knowing how to use software makes you a happier user.

That insight stayed with me.

In 2020, as I stepped into my full-time role with the NHS, I had the opportunity to contribute early thinking around NHS England’s “What Good Looks Like” framework. I recall numerous conversations where we would agree that what good looked like was things that could be measured, tracked, and ultimately focussed on improving the lives of our clinical colleagues. A consistent theme in those discussions was the need to measure two things in parallel:

• Digital maturity: the infrastructure, systems, and capabilities an organisation has in place
• Digital experience: how effectively those systems support the people using them

Out of this thinking came the Digital Maturity Assessment and the usability survey work developed by KLAS Research and their UK partner, Ethical Healthcare Consulting, who were commissioned to deliver.

Today, with the publication of both datasets, England finds itself in a unique position. For the first time, we can directly compare how digitally mature an organisation is with how well that digital environment actually works for its users.

Recently, NHS England has published the results of both of these surveys, and we are the only country in the world who can now look at each hospital, community, mental health trust and compare their digital maturity with the digital satisfaction of their users. Now, it’s time to evaluate how healthcare organisations can turn those findings into actionable results.

What does the DMA reveal about digital capabilities?

The DMA provides a structured view of digital capability across areas such as infrastructure, interoperability, security, and data. It shows a clear progression from fragmented systems and higher operational risk at lower levels of maturity to fully integrated, secure, and data-driven environments at the highest levels of maturity.

Digital maturity, as defined in the framework, tends to focus on what is deployed and available. Usability data, by contrast, tells us how those systems are experienced in practice.

However, there is often a gap between digital capability and digital usability.

Healthcare organisations can and do invest heavily in modern systems, yet still fall short in delivering a positive experience for clinicians, particularly in the area of delivering seamless, efficient workflows. The result is friction in the form of multiple logins, inconsistent access, and workarounds that introduce both inefficiency and risk.

Why are usability and identity central to digital maturity?

If the next phase of digital transformation is to deliver real impact, the focus must shift from deployment to experience.

This is where identity and access management becomes critical.

Access is the front door to every digital interaction in healthcare. If it is slow, fragmented, or inconsistent, it undermines every downstream investment—whether in EPRs, interoperability, or AI. Conversely, when access is fast, secure, and unobtrusive, it enables clinicians to engage fully with digital tools and workflows.

In other words, frictionless and secure access is no longer just an added convenience but a foundational enabler of digital maturity.

This aligns directly with what the DMA is beginning to surface. Higher levels of maturity are characterised by both integrated systems as well as environments that are reliable, secure, and usable at scale. Achieving that requires evaluating maturity beyond infrastructure with an approach to identity that supports:

• Seamless clinician mobility across digital systems and care settings
• Strong, consistent security without disrupting workflow
• A secure, efficient user experience tailored to the realities of clinical practice

Stewarding digital journey transparency and action

Putting this information into the public domain is a significant step forward. It creates visibility and, importantly, accountability:

• For our analysts and statisticians, it provides a rich data set to identity patterns to work through and create solutions
• For CIOs, it clarifies their understanding of where they are at in their digital journey to drive continuous improvement
• For Board Executives, it links digital investments to measurable outcomes
• For doctors, nurses, AHPs, it validates lived experiences and justifies the case for change
• And most critically, for patients, it offers greater transparency into how well organisations are delivering digital care

But while effective measurement is a meaningful step forward, the real opportunity and challenge is acting on these insights. Ultimately, closing the gap between digital maturity and digital usability means recognising that the two are inseparable.

An opportunity for measurement and digital transformation

W. Edwards Denning famously said “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. Well, the NHS in England is measuring it and now has the chance to manage it too. That puts the NHS in a strong position to positively advance digital transformation. The next step is to ensure that these measurements translate into meaningful, sustained improvement – especially in the day-to-day experience of clinicians delivering care.

That’s what digital transformation is all about: enabling people to do their jobs better, more efficiently, and more safely for the benefit of patients.

If we get that right and focus on reducing friction while maintaining robust security, then digital maturity will shift from an abstract goal to something that is felt, every day, on the frontline.

I am proud to have been a small cog in this journey which I hope will continue long into the future.