The biggest productivity gain in diagnostics is in the workflows around it
Announcement September 18th: Digital Workforce HETT 2026 -our team is attending
HETT 2026 is soon approaching – The Digital Workforce’s NHS team will be attending the event in London on 29–30 September.
Our cancer pathway and diagnostics experts Jas Cartwright and Chris Sleight will also take the stage in the AI Spotlight- speaker spot to discuss how automation can streamline patient care and diagnostic pathways.
Between the two of them, they have spent over 60 years working in and around the NHS. Throughout their journeys, they’ve always reached the same conclusion. The biggest productivity gain doesn’t come from diagnostics itself, but from the workflow around it.
Roughly a quarter of patients are currently waiting more than six weeks for a diagnostic test, and the shortfall between testing capacity and rising demand has continued to widen year on year. We shouldn’t look at this only through a capacity lens, as it doesn’t paint the full picture. Patients are often waiting for information, scheduling and referral paperwork.
Streamlining patient care and patient pathways
Frontline NHS teams know that timely diagnostic information is critical to effective patient care, but care pathways often span multiple teams, organisations and systems.
We work closely with NHS organisations to map entire care pathways, identify operational friction and model the optimal workflow. Using automation, AI and process orchestration, we then translate the pathway into an integrated solution model that automates non-clinical work and provides end-to-end visibility of patient flow and each patient’s status.
This means that routine diagnostic requests can move through the system seamlessly and quickly, reducing bottlenecks and speeding up patient test results.
Importantly, for clinicians, it doesn’t add to their workload, freeing up more time for them to be with patients and focus on more complex cases.
This is the fastest way to bring down diagnostic waiting times. It’s making sure the information, referrals and scheduling around that capacity move as fast as the testing itself.
Digital Workforce HETT 2026 Highlights
- 29–30 September: Digital Workforce will showcase our work at HETT 2026, the UK’s leading digital health conference and exhibition.
- Stand H15: Discover how we help NHS organisations improve productivity through automation services, spanning the automation lifecycle and market-leading solutions for intelligent care pathways.
- Tuesday 29 September, 1:10–1:30 pm: Join our session ‘From Referral to Diagnosis: How Automation can Streamline Patient Care and Diagnostic Pathways’ in the AI Spotlight speaker spot.
- Session focus: Explore how an end-to-end approach to automation, AI and process orchestration can transform entire care pathways, not simply improve individual tasks in isolation.
Join us at HETT 2026 and don’t miss our AI Spotlight session.
Explore the full HETT 2026 programme and register on the website
Announcement September 18th: Digital Workforce HETT 2026 -our team is attending