The UK can lead on XR in health & care
– if we work together  

XR is moving rapidly from promising innovation to practical infrastructure for the future of UK health and care. Last week, the XR Health Alliance took another important step forward, with a new national report commissioned by the University of Liverpool’s Civic Health Innovation Labs.  

The research maps organisations across the UK that are developing and deploying extended reality technologies for healthcare, providing valuable insights for stakeholders across industry, healthcare and research. 

XR is ready to scale, but there are major barriers to overcome  

The report also underlines some clear system-wide signals. XR is breaking out of the lab and moving into real clinical use. More than 60 percent of universities are already using XR, compared with about 30 percent of NHS trusts.  

The technology is gaining traction fastest in workforce training, mental health, physiotherapy and rehabilitation, with growing evidence for depression, anxiety and cognitive rehab. 

Yet major needs remain unmet – including dementia, PTSD and substance misuse. Innovation is strong, but much of it sits with micro companies that struggle to scale into the NHS, because procurement is difficult, evidence is fragmented, regulation is unclear and sustainable NHS funding models are still missing.  

Even so, the UK is seen globally as a leader in combining creative industries, research and health innovation. The direction of travel is clear. This is a sector ready to scale. And public investment is helping – including the £20 million Mindset XR programme.  

Taken together, the XR Health Alliance mapping provides the breadth of the ecosystem and FCC’s earlier work provides depth on the implementation challenge. Both set out a consistent roadmap for how immersive technologies can support workforce readiness, improve patient safety and help the health and care system meet rising demand. 

This is the moment for a joined-up national approach.  

Government, the NHS, educators, industry and innovators need to work together to align standards, evidence, investment and adoption. With coordination and ambition, the UK can lead globally in safe, effective and scalable XR for health and care. 

FCC is ideally positioned to bring stakeholders together. 

In 2024, Future Care Capital’s publication The Potential of Extended Reality in Healthcare Education highlighted the opportunity for XR to transform clinical training, workforce development and system efficiency. The report set out the evidence, the barriers and the conditions needed for safe, scalable implementation across the NHS.  

Now, we stand ready to work with partners across the system to co-produce a national framework for XR in health and care. This should bring together evidence standards, safe adoption pathways, governance and value models so that promising XR solutions can move from pilots to practice at pace. We invite organisations who share this ambition to collaborate with us – contact Dr Lauren Evans at lauren@futurecarecapital.org.uk.  

Dr Lauren Evans is Director of Research and Innovation at Future Care Capital.