The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has transformed its approach to validating its level of cybersecurity maturity across healthcare by adopting the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF).
This shift is key to achieving the NHS’s broader goals: protecting patient data, ensuring uninterrupted healthcare delivery, and building the foundation for a fully digitized healthcare system by 2030. By prioritizing outcome-driven security over traditional compliance, the NHS is embedding cybersecurity into its operations, aligning with the UK’s broader cybersecurity strategy and standardizing risk management to prepare for future challenges.
By 2030, the NHS aims to be fully digitized — a monumental goal. But this digital initiative needs a secure foundation. The UK government’s Cyber Security Strategy for Health and Social Care sets a clear objective: a system that can keep pace with rapid technological change. The NCSC CAF is core to achieving this goal because it embeds cybersecurity into every digital initiative and decision the NHS makes moving forward. (This CrowdStrike white paper explores the NCSC CAF requirements and key business outcomes for UK public sector organizations.)
So, what drove this transition? How will it shape the future of UK healthcare? The days of traditional checkbox compliance are over. The new CAF model demands real, evidence-backed security — a philosophy that has been core to the CrowdStrike Falcon® cybersecurity platform from the beginning. Our mission has always been to provide customers with deep transparency into their security posture and deliver the actionable insights needed to gauge their true maturity. For NHS organizations, this means having the clarity and confidence to align seamlessly with CAF’s rigorous requirements, moving beyond compliance to build resilience.
Why Adopt the CAF Assurance Model?
At the core of the NHS are world-class healthcare professionals working within a vast network of interconnected systems and supply chains, which are ripe for disruption by today’s cyber adversaries. Modern threat actors are relentless, leveraging advanced tactics to disrupt, steal from, and compromise these vital operations. The challenge isn’t just in preventing attacks but ensuring critical healthcare services remain secure, resilient, and operational. Without a proactive and strategic approach to counter modern cyber threats, the NHS risks exposing its most critical processes to potentially devastating consequences.
The shift to CAF isn’t just a choice — it’s a necessity. The previous Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT), introduced in 2018, was a good starting point and enabled healthcare organizations to collaborate more securely. But CAF raises the bar: It’s structured, outcome-driven, and designed for the evolving threat landscape healthcare faces today.
CAF zeroes in on the areas that matter most: governance, risk management, and operational security. In healthcare, mistakes can have massive consequences. The NHS handles vast amounts of sensitive patient data and has a pivotal role in medical research. This makes it a prime target for cybercriminals. By adopting the CAF, the NHS aims to standardize its approach to risk management, ensuring security is robust, reliable, and ready for tomorrow’s threats.
The clock is ticking. The NHS has made great progress, but outdated systems still run deep, creating gaps that are hard to secure and manage. These legacy systems, while necessary for daily operations, pose evolving challenges in today’s threat landscape.
Lord Darzi’s September 2024 report couldn’t be clearer: The NHS must embrace advanced digital technologies. His vision of a more agile, tech-driven NHS aligns directly with the adoption of CAF. This isn’t just about catching up — it’s about building a future where digital transformation and ironclad security go hand in hand.
The Impact of this Transition
Moving to the CAF is a strategic pivot that goes far beyond cybersecurity. This shift will impact every aspect of healthcare delivery in the UK. As Lord Darzi highlights, the NHS faces enormous challenges as it scales its digital infrastructure to meet rising patient demand, all while managing limited resources. The CAF provides a clear, actionable framework to help tackle these challenges by assessing and managing cyber risks through an outcome-based approach.
This transition also equips NHS leadership with better decision-making tools. As cloud services expand, so do the risks. While cloud platforms can increase efficiency and accessibility, they also introduce new vulnerabilities. The CAF provides a comprehensive framework that enables NHS trusts to manage these risks while ensuring NHS leaders are empowered to make decisions about where to invest in cybersecurity.
A Cyber-Resilient NHS by 2030: What’s Next?
The NHS’s goal of becoming fully digitized by 2030 is ambitious but achievable with the right foundation. The UK government’s Cyber Security Strategy for Health and Social Care underscores the importance of embedding cybersecurity into every digital initiative. The CAF will be central to this transformation, ensuring the NHS can adapt to rapid technological change while staying secure.
However, success depends not just on adopting CAF but also on closing the NHS’s cybersecurity skills gap. Like many public sector organizations, the NHS faces a critical shortage of cybersecurity expertise. Investing in both technology and talent is non-negotiable if the NHS is to secure its digital future.
How CrowdStrike Can Support the NHS on This Journey
As the NHS moves into its new chapter of measuring maturity, CrowdStrike is uniquely positioned to help protect healthcare organizations with the support and trust required. We’ve supported healthcare providers worldwide in protecting the systems that millions rely on every day. We also understand the critical challenges in healthcare, including securing patient data, managing threats against legacy systems, and staying ahead of adversaries targeting the sector.
The CrowdStrike Falcon® cybersecurity platform is a cloud-native solution built to deliver the speed, scalability, and comprehensive visibility required by the NHS, both for aligning with the NCSC CAF and tackling advanced cyber threats. It’s more than a cybersecurity tool — it’s the foundation of a strong security posture. With real-time, end-to-end insights, the Falcon platform enables NHS teams to detect and neutralize threats from endpoint to cloud and keep patient care running safely and efficiently.
Today’s attackers are relentless, using increasingly sophisticated techniques and tactics to target the NHS. That’s why CrowdStrike Falcon® Adversary Intelligence is embedded directly into the Falcon platform: to provide healthcare organizations with the insights needed to move from a reactive to proactive state. Crowdstrike threat intelligence doesn’t just respond to threats — it anticipates them, enabling the NHS to stay ahead in protecting its data and patient systems.
With CrowdStrike supporting healthcare organizations across the globe, the NHS is only a step away in detecting and preventing some of the most sophisticated threats. As the NHS aligns with the NCSC CAF framework, CrowdStrike provides the confidence and capabilities to protect systems and data required by millions in the UK.
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