NHS England has launched a formal market engagement process worth up to £110 million, inviting technology suppliers to help design a new generation of digital health services for children. The process signals a significant shift in how the health service intends to manage preventative care for young people, from birth through to adolescence.

At present, child health in England relies on a patchwork of systems. The child health information service, antenatal and newborn screening programmes, and the personal child health record, the paper booklet known as the Red Book that parents are handed at birth, all operate with limited digital integration. NHS England has determined this is no longer fit for purpose.

The programme sits within the Transformation Directorate and brings together products and services used across preventative child health into a single delivery area. The stated goal is not simply to convert paper processes into digital ones, but to rethink how those services function. NHS England has indicated it wants to draw on artificial intelligence and a deeper understanding of health behaviours to support families more proactively, rather than reactively.

In practical terms, this means frontline workers in maternity and health visiting services would be able to record outcomes directly through the NHS App. Parents would have access to a digital version of the Red Book. Data flows between services would be improved so that information follows the child rather than sitting in disconnected records across different parts of the system.

The market engagement stage is, by design, exploratory. NHS England wants to establish whether suppliers can actually meet these requirements and what a realistic budget looks like before committing to a formal tender. Interested companies have been asked to complete a request for information document by 6 July 2026. A webinar explaining the programme's aims is scheduled for 16 June. Contract dates are estimated to run from July 2027 to June 2030, with an option to extend to June 2031.

The announcement comes against a backdrop of growing investment in digital services specifically aimed at children and young people across the health service. In the West Midlands, Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust recently moved to award a contract worth £30,000 to an AI-assisted mental health platform for young people across Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. The service offers more than 150 evidence-based exercises covering anxiety, low mood and behavioural techniques.

Separately, NHS England awarded a five-year contract worth up to £1.5 million to a digital education platform supporting children and young people living with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. The platform is designed to be universally available and to promote self-management of the condition.

These individual contracts are modest in scale compared to the £110 million programme, but they reflect a consistent direction of travel. Trusts and commissioners are actively procuring digital tools for children's health where none previously existed, or where paper and telephone-based services have persisted longer than in other parts of the NHS.

Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust went live with a new electronic patient record system in May last year, following several years of planning. The trust's chief technology officer has described it as a significant step forward in its data infrastructure, and said the focus now shifts to deciding where to go next with that foundation in place.

Whether NHS England's broader ambitions for children's digital health can be realised will depend partly on what this market engagement reveals. The health service has set out a clear vision. The question now is whether the technology sector can respond to it at the scale and cost required.

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