KPMG UK leads Black Book 2026 NHS EPR consulting scorecard
KPMG UK/EPR Alliance has taken the top position in Black Book Market Research's Q3 2026 NHS EPR Optimisation Consulting scorecard, scoring a weighted mean of 9.57 across 18 performance indicators. The ranking, based on 620 qualified executive inputs drawn from 145 UK/NHS provider-client relationships, covers implemented and substantially live EPR work completed over the prior four years.
APIRA/IQVIA ranked second at 9.22, followed by Ideal Health at 9.20, PA Consulting at 9.02, and PwC UK at 8.84. Beyond the headline rankings, individual firms led on specific criteria: Channel 3 Consulting topped clinical workflow optimisation; Stalis led data migration and cutover; Cloud21 led go-live stabilisation and application managed support; PA Consulting led benefits realisation; and Aire Logic led interoperability and open standards.
What NHS buyers are demanding
The scorecard data signals a material shift in what NHS organisations expect from EPR consultancies. Workflow redesign dominated the findings, with 92% of respondents citing EPR optimisation and clinical workflow redesign as a priority. Clinical adoption and usability improvement was flagged by 88%, while go-live stabilisation support was cited by 84%. Clinical safety and leadership was rated high or critical by 83% of participants.
Most telling for vendors and consultants alike is the benefits-tracking figure. Seventy per cent of buyers now require evidence of measurable outcomes after go-live, with 90- to 180-day reporting expected across clinical, productivity, revenue, access, and workforce dimensions. That expectation moves the commercial relationship well beyond system activation and closer to an outcomes-as-a-service model.
Doug Brown, founder of Black Book Research, said: "The outcome test is direct: reduce documentation burden, improve adoption, close defects, protect data quality and turn EPR investment into access, productivity and workforce gains."
Market context
The NHS EPR market is in a post-digitisation phase, following the significant capital commitments made under the What Good Looks Like framework and the earlier Global Digital Exemplar programme. Attention is shifting from initial implementation to optimisation, interoperability, and long-term benefits realisation. Black Book's own 2027-2028 outlook identifies EPR optimisation as the primary growth area in NHS consulting, while managed support and release operations are assessed as moderate-to-high demand categories on the basis that post-live stability determines whether efficiency gains are sustained.
That trajectory aligns with broader pressures on NHS trusts to demonstrate return on digital investment at a time of constrained capital budgets. Consultancies that can document measurable clinical and operational gains are increasingly differentiated from those offering general transformation credentials. As Brown noted, "Generic transformation credentials are no longer enough in NHS EPR work." The competitive premium now sits with firms that can field experienced clinical, operational, and technical specialists accountable across the full delivery lifecycle, not just at go-live.
Black Book describes itself as vendor- and consultant-agnostic, and states that no ranked firm sponsored or influenced the scorecard. The full UK/NHS edition is available on request from the organisation directly.