The shift to prevention: A new ecosystem of health promotion and protection

For more than a decade the NHS has faced mounting pressure from an increasing disease burden, including mental health disorders, lifestyle-related issues, obesity, vaccine-preventable diseases, and chronic conditions like heart disease and cancers. Deloitte’s recently published report, ‘The shift to prevention: A new ecosystem of health promotion and protection’ outlines a transformative vision for the future of the NHS, that involves shifting from a reactive, treatment-focused model to a proactive and preventative approach. Developed in partnership with Google and The Royal Society, the report envisions a future centred on a new prevention ecosystem, focused on interventions that extend health lifespan and prevent prolonged period of illness before they occur. Our blog explores the bold paradigm shift that is needed, the transformational potential of new innovations and the need to scale up the foundational preventative strategies that are currently under-utilised or inefficiently implemented.

What needs to change to improve the focus on prevention?

Reducing the disease burden of the UK population will require a paradigm shift in the NHS’s health strategy. This includes improving people’s understanding of their own health through enhanced health education, advanced screening, digital technologies (including AI, wearables) and support from digital health navigators. The hyper-personalised insights created should then be used to empower individuals to manage their own health. This will also require increased focus and spending on preventative interventions, leveraging partners outside of the health system, and significant investment in the NHS data and technology infrastructure. ‘Prevention’ broadly encompasses strategies that delay or mitigate illness and disability, maximising the number of years lived in good health.

By 2035, the goal is to create a human-centred health promotion and protection system driven by advancements in genomics, health education, and a digital infrastructure powered by AI to provide hyper-personalised health insights for everyone, at every life stage. This will deliver benefits such as longer healthy life expectancy, reduced health inequalities, delayed entry into the healthcare system, a more resilient and productive workforce; which in turn will help boost economic growth and innovation leading to a healthier and wealthier economy.

Achieving the vision for a healthier future

To achieve this transformative vision for a healthier population will require the NHS to collaborate with and utilise the skills of stakeholders across different sectors, including retail, educators, private sector innovators, employers and wider government; together with an increased focus and spending on preventative interventions and place-based care.  It will also require shared access to data, AI and technology, changes to policy and law, and to provide information and incentives that help people make healthy choices. Critical enablers include empowered communities, aligned incentives and dedicated budgets and foundational data and trusted technology. Three crucial preventative interventions are:

1. Empowering individuals through health education: equipping individuals with the knowledge, skills, tools and incentives to make informed choices and adopt healthy lifestyles through accessible and engaging health information and improved health and digital literacy.
2. Harnessing the power of advanced screening: leveraging advancements in comprehensive health screening across the life course (early years, school, and workplace health checks), as well as clinical examinations, biochemical tests, radiological imaging, and genomics to understand individual's predisposition to disease and tailor health strategies accordingly.
3. Building a robust digital infrastructure: leveraging the power of technology including AI, wearable health trackers, and connected digital platforms to provide personalised health insights, support self-management, and enable proactive interventions, while building public trust in technology and enabling people to control access to their data.

Data-driven and personalised approach across the life course

This vision prioritises longer, healthier lifespans, not just disease avoidance, by implementing preventative, earlier, interventions across an individual’s entire lifespan:

• In utero to age 5: optimising early development through expanded newborn checks, optional genomic testing (contingent on ethical guidelines), and comprehensive parental support programmes, to lay the foundations for healthy healthier life expectancy.
• School and education: integrating comprehensive health education and digital literacy into the national curriculum to equip children and young adults with the knowledge and skills to empower them to make healthier choices; and training staff to deliver engaging health education and promote mental health awareness.
• Workplace and family: integrating health and work through smart workspaces that monitor employees physical and mental well-being, while providing community solutions for those outside traditional workplaces.
• Midlife and retirement: managing age-related health risks by prioritising targeted screening for chronic conditions, implementing programmes to delay disease onset, and providing support for healthy ageing.
• Older community and social care: providing tailored support using connected digital care technologies for remote monitoring and enabling independent living; and improving access to community resources, high-quality social care services and targeted health protection for vulnerable older adults.

The focus and spend on health protection will need to increase. Moreover, to achieve a technology enabled future state there are several fundamentals to get right, and interventions that need to be scaled, see Figure 1.

Figure 1. Fundamentals to get right, areas to go further faster, and ones to design for the future

Source: Deloitte, Google and The Royal Society, 2025

Decentralising preventative care through a collaborative ecosystem

The success of this approach relies on a shift towards decentralised, convenient healthcare integrated into daily life. Key stakeholders, beyond the NHS, include:

• Empowered individuals: Making informed choices and controlling their well-being through personalised information, convenient digital tools, and support networks.
• Non-profit organisations: Building trust and reaching underserved communities.
• Education sector: Integrating health education into the curriculum, building trust and empowering individuals to leverage increasing health knowledge.
• Retail and community providers: Offering accessible health services and being proactive on certain risk factors.
  Health innovators: Developing cutting-edge solutions, integrating prevention within existing treatment business models.
• Employers and insurers: Promoting and investing in employee well-being, supporting the actions of the NHS through employee education and benefits.
• Central and local government: Shaping the health environment through policy and investment.

Critical enablers to reap the rewards

Transitioning to a new ecosystem for health promotion and protection requires a multifaceted approach encompassing several key enablers. Success hinges on a collaborative effort from all sectors of society, embracing technological advancements, fostering collaboration, and empowering individuals to take control of their health, see Figure 2.

Figure 2. Key enablers powering the future of health promotion and protection

Source: Deloitte, Google and The Royal Society, 2025

While data and technology are enablers, they also underpin the entire vision. Integrating technology for preventative healthcare, encompasses improved awareness, early risk detection, proactive intervention, and continuous monitoring. Individuals will benefit from an AI-powered ‘clinician in their pocket’, accessing and managing diverse health data to actively manage their well-being and navigate the healthcare system. Wearables will provide continuous data, including objective and subjective metrics, analysed by AI to track progress, improve adherence and enable adjustments and timely responses. User-controlled, data sharing will foster trust and encourage data sharing. Healthcare professionals will use AI to enhance screening and diagnosis, while the NHS app can serve as a central hub for personalised insights and proactive interventions. Realising this vision requires the health system to safeguard data privacy, ensure ethical data use and establish robust governance to safeguard data privacy.

Conclusion

Deloitte’s vision for a new ecosystem of health promotion and protection is unashamedly ambitious. The NHS 10-Year Plan rightly prioritises prevention, acknowledging the concerning 28 per cent decline in preventative spending over the last decade. This reduction, coupled with rising out-of-pocket spend on prevention (2.7 times more in 10 years), exacerbates health inequalities. The plan includes a focus on the social determinants of health - food, exercise, housing, and employment – which is a much needed and welcome step. While the NHS 10-Year Health Plan sets ambitious goals for prevention, the time for action is now. Our report provides suggestions on who to involve and how to translate these intentions into tangible improvements in preventative healthcare and address the widening health inequalities. The next step needs to be a focus on how to collectively drive progress.

Success hinges on a collaborative effort from all stakeholders, including the NHS, government, private sector, employers, communities, and individuals. By embracing technology, empowering individuals, and addressing social determinants of health, the UK can create a more sustainable, equitable, and effective healthcare system for the future. Realising this vision will require the paradigm shift we refer to in our report, raising critical questions for public and private sector architects of the health system to consider.