Dates: 6-9 October 2025, London and Oxford • Follow‑up: 15 October 2025, Tallinn.
For: NHS leaders and delivery partners building for national scale.
We came to the UK with a clear question in mind: could an Estonia‑scale interoperability playbook hold its shape inside the complexity of the NHS. We left with a stronger yes than we expected, and we finished the conversation a week later on home ground in Tallinn, where the theme was not so much about technology as it was about trust.
At a glance
- We joined the Estonian presidential HealthTech delegation during the state visit to the UK to road‑test an Estonia‑scale interoperability playbook against NHS priorities.
- Focus areas: policy alignment, procurement pathways, data quality for AI‑ready care, interoperability by design.
- Rhythm of the week: Estonian-British Health Tech meeting in collaboration with the Association of British HealthTech Industries and networking sessions on Monday, a press lunch with President Alar Karis to align on digital health, data, and UK-Estonia collaboration on Tuesday, HETT conference days on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Oxford immersion on Thursday.
- Closing the loop at home on 15 October: a Tallinn panel on resilience and trust in digital health.
Why we came
We did not come to talk about data rails or digital infrastructure. We came to talk about healthcare - the kind that reaches real people across hospitals, community services, and prevention programmes. Estonia has already shown what happens when interoperability becomes a clinical tool, not an IT concept - when every record, every term, every exchange supports better decisions and continuum of care.
We came to talk about healthcare - the kind that reaches real people across hospitals, community services, and prevention programmes.
In the UK, the NHS Long Term Plan sets a clear direction - care closer to home, digital as the default, prevention at the centre. We came to explore how an Estonia-scale healthcare playbook could help bring those aims to life, turning interoperability into something that supports clinicians and patients every day. Because it matters.
What we heard - and what we will do
The baseline message was direct: if solutions must reach every patient, set aside personal ego and private interests and act for the community. This is not a slogan. It is a design rule. It influences how roadmaps are negotiated, how governance is set, and how vendors show up.
If solutions must reach every patient, set aside personal ego and private interests and act for the community.
Our actions: we are translating this rule into delivery because at national scale, small details are the system.
Closing the loop in Tallinn
A week later, the conversation continued in Tallinn as part of the “Press Trip: Estonia's HealthTech Ecosystem” programme, with media from the UK and Germany. We joined the panel “Building Resilience & Trust - Exporting Estonia’s Digital Health Blueprint,” sharing Kodality’s perspective on engineering mission-critical digital health infrastructure that enables interoperable care. Echoing our discussions in the UK, the session kept returning to a simple rule: act for the community, and trust follows.
What happens next
If you are an NHS ICS, Trust, or national programme that is:
- unblocking interoperability across care settings,
- preparing data for AI while keeping safety non-negotiable,
let us add Estonia digitalisation experience to your delivery plan. Kodality’s work on national and regional health platforms has shown that interoperability is not only a technical goal - it is a trust architecture. Let us build that together.
This project was organized in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Tehnopol Science and Business Park and the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EIS), and funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU.
Cover photo made by Raigo Pajula.