NHS organisations urged to join digital efforts on genomics

Industry partners and NHS organisations have been urged to partner on efforts to build a national unified genomics record.

Genomics has long been cited as a key priority for the NHS in England, with a desire to embed genomic testing and information more reliably into care pathways.

Teams at NHS England are therefore working to build a unified digital genomics record to underpin such developments.

Speaking at Digital Health Rewired on 19 March 2025, NHS England experts working on the project emphasised the need for industry support and collaboration.

“The ultimate goal is to get to a unified genomics record where the right person, at the right place, at the right time can have the right information. It sounds simple but when you start looking at all the nooks and crannies and complexities, it is quite challenging,” explained Hamish Price, NHS England genomics unit programme manager.

He added that success will require “true native interoperability” between EPR, LIMS and the national unified record, which will in turn require collaboration from vendors and NHS organisations.

“We want more NHS organisations and industry partners coming on board,” added Ravi Natarajan, technical architect at NHSE. “We want to drive that uniformity across the ecosystem and help the patient ultimately.”

Omar Khan, interoperability standards architect at NHSE, urged vendors to use common standards wherever possible to support that aim.

Price concluded: “Our end goal is that if you’re a clinician working in a hospital or anywhere else, you will not need to go into another system to look for something on genomics, and then go back into another system to complete a process.

“Instead you will have a tab or navigation with a patient’s genomic history, what genomic test requests have been made, what requests are live and results.”

The UK is widely regarded as a leader in genomics, which involves study of the genes in DNA. It can potentially lead to treatments which target the specific mechanisms of a disease in an individual.

Health secretary, Wes Streeting pledged in July 2024, that the government would make Britain “a powerhouse for the life sciences and medical technology”.