“Invest, invest, invest is the theme of this Budget,” said Rachel Reeves. “There won’t be a return to austerity”.

But the Financial Times has spotted a problem in the Chancellor’s plan. She needs to demonstrate benefits in five years, according to her rules, and large infrastructure projects take too long. So expect the NHS’s share of capital to prioritise early results.

Instead of ‘big bang’ investments, then, why not plan a series of smaller investments in which each gain builds on the last? With a coherent plan for incremental investment, you can expect a higher chance of success because each separate bid is smaller and delivers faster results.

A good example would be steadily unifying patient pathway data that currently exists in silos. As staff spend less time looking for information and piecing it together, they spend more time solving capacity bottlenecks and improving pathways, reinforcing the original benefit. Every new incremental investment builds on the last, bringing in information from places like surgical hubs or patient communications, making pathways clearer, safer and faster at low cost and low risk.

Drop us a line to explore how this incremental approach could be tailored to your particular situation. Then when the capital flows are announced, you’ll be in pole position to make a successful bid for it.