NHS Confed 2026

This year’s NHS ConfedExpo was a landmark event for the Toca.health team. Beyond the bustling exhibition floor and the hundreds of insightful conversations at Stand F30, the event provided powerful validation of the work we do every day alongside our NHS partners.

From national recognition on the main stage to sustainable event design, here are our major highlights and key takeaways from NHS ConfedExpo.

National stage validation: E-triage as the benchmark for elective recovery

The defining moment of the conference came during the keynote address by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, The Rt Hon James Murray MP.

Mapping out the immediate future of healthcare innovation and elective recovery, he directly highlighted the Royal Berkshire E-triage tool powered by Toca.health as an exemplar for the wider NHS:

“…the e-triage tool being used by Royal Berkshire, and others, to reduce the number of face-to-face appointments, shows that new technology will not just improve the speed and convenience for outpatients a decade from now, but again will do so over the next few years.”

Hearing our platform championed on the national stage as a benchmark for outpatient transformation is a huge milestone. Clinically led E-triage is not a theoretical concept planned for ten years down the line: it is delivering real, measurable capacity back to frontline staff and drastically optimising patient pathways right now.

A massive thank you to Jonathan Rees and the pioneering team at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust for partnering with us to lead this operational shift.

Real-world solutions for immediate pain points

Throughout the event, our team delivered live platform demos at Stand F30, demonstrating how Toca.health automates administrative drag and removes operational friction across NHS trusts.

Rather than pitching distant promises, the focus remained on practical execution:

• Unlocking trapped data: connecting disparate legacy systems and e-Referral Systems (e-RS) without requiring massive infrastructure overhauls.
• Saving clinician hours: automating routine triage, referral sorting, and administrative classification so clinicians can focus on direct care.
• Rapid deployment: demonstrating how agile technology can deliver high-impact capacity within months, not years.

Sustainable innovation: recognised as a ‘Responsible Exhibitor’

At Toca, innovation isn’t just about software: it extends to how we show up as a company. We were proud to be named a ‘Responsible Exhibitor’ at NHS ConfedExpo, ranking in the top quarter of exhibitors for sustainability.

Instead of contributing to the single-use waste often associated with major trade shows, we specifically designed our signature stand, “The Shed”, to be fully modular, reusable and adaptable for future events. Aligning our physical presence with broader NHS net-zero goals is something we take immense pride in.

Looking ahead

NHS ConfedExpo proved that the appetite for practical, scalable and safe healthcare technology has never been higher. When government policy, clinical leadership, and flexible software align, transforming patient pathways becomes an immediate reality.

Thank you to everyone who visited Stand F30, caught our live demos, or reached out after the keynote.

To see how Toca.health supports NHS trusts with clinically led E-triage and interoperability, visit toca.health.