Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of (a) augmented reality headsets and (b) innovative technologies to deliver improvements in the NHS.

The Department and the National Health Service recognise the huge potential for innovative technologies to transform the delivery of better and more efficient health services, and to improve patient experience and outcomes. This commitment to using innovative technologies to improve the NHS is a key theme in the NHS Long Term Plan and the second Life Sciences Sector Deal. It is also a driving force behind the new NHSX.

To support better use of innovative technologies in the NHS, we are delivering approximately £100 million of funding, including:

- £15 million for the NHS test beds programme, which supports industry and NHS collaborations to test their innovations in real-world clinical settings;

- £39 million to improve local adoption and uptake of innovative medical technologies through the 15 Academic Health Science Networks; and

- £35 million to encourage and support innovators to develop more world-leading digital solutions, including a surgery simulation training platform, utilising innovative haptic feedback and advanced Virtual Reality (VR) modelling through Fundamental VR.

Underpinning these initiatives will be the improvement of the wider innovation ecosystem for all technologies, including those using augmented reality platforms. An enhanced and strengthened Accelerated Access Collaborative will improve patient access to the most effective technologies, and will complement the work of NHSX which will focus on the health system’s technology and digital infrastructure, ensuring that the NHS has the capability to adopt cutting-edge technologies.