Inhalers that show when they are running out. Oxygen equipment light enough to take out of the house. Help telling whether breathlessness is anxiety or the start of a flare-up. These are among 20 priority areas for new respiratory health technology, identified by people living with lung disease, carers and healthcare professionals in a University of Oxford-led study published today in Thorax . The findings, which set out ways technology could improve care for people with chronic lung disease, are already shaping a new National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funding opportunity.
The HERON study asked 314 people across the four UK nations about biggest problems in respiratory care and where technology could help. Their answers, nearly 1,300 challenges and ideas in all, were sorted into 73 areas where technology could make a difference. The researchers then checked each one against what already exists, from early prototypes to products on sale. They found:
52 areas had nothing adequate.
21 were partly covered.
None cleared the bar the study set itself – a suitable solution in routine use at scale across the UK – and the authors say the picture may have moved since they looked.
The study was led by the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford and the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Community Healthcare.
Dr Helen Ashdown, an academic GP at the University of Oxford who led the study, said:
"There is enormous potential for technology to improve respiratory care, but just developing more technology is not enough. HERON tells us not only where those who will ultimately be using the technology think innovation could make the greatest difference, but also what they need from those technologies if they are going to work in real life. That includes equity, accessibility and usability, which need to be built in to developing the technology right from the start."
Lung disease affects around one in five people in the UK. It is the third leading cause of death and accounts for more than 700,000 people in hospital each year. The burden falls hardest on poorer communities, and research funding has not kept pace with it. The market for respiratory technology, by contrast, has grown fast – but new products have tended to follow what is technically possible rather than what the people using them asked for. Although products are developed to include the most cutting-edge technology, this doesn't always match what the people using the products want or need.
The Oxford team adapted a method from the James Lind Alliance, which brings patients and clinicians together to decide what research should be done, and turned it on technology instead: anything from a home lung-function test to an app to the data system behind a virtual ward.
As far as the authors know, no one had previously described a systematic method like this for setting HealthTech priorities in chronic respiratory disease. Surveys ran from June to November 2025. Because online surveys miss many of the people most affected, the researchers also went to community groups such as pulmonary rehabilitation classes, a singing group for people with breathlessness and a respiratory service for people who are homeless, in Greater Manchester, Norwich, Bristol, Nottingham and Weston-super-Mare.
In March 2026, 23 patients, carers and clinicians spent a day narrowing the list and came up with a final top 20. They run from screening people at risk to keeping people going after a rehabilitation course ends. One demand cut across all of them: whatever gets built has to work for someone with poor eyesight, unsteady hands or no confidence with a smartphone, and it has to be affordable to run – for the NHS and for the patient.
The list has already found a use. The NIHR's latest Invention for Innovation (i4i) FAST funding opportunity for chronic respiratory health technology, open now, encourages applicants to address the HERON priorities in their applications. The Respiratory Transformation Partnership, a national collaboration between the NHS, government and industry, to improve asthma and COPD care, is also supporting the findings that will inform RTP considerations and better connect promising technologies with the needs of patients and respiratory services.
Dr Jonathan Fuld, National Clinical Director for Respiratory Disease at NHS England and Chair of the Respiratory Transformation Partnership said:
"Patients should be at the heart of how new respiratory technologies are developed, and this study helps identify where innovation could make the biggest difference for people living with lung disease and clinicians.
"By ensuring innovation support is aligned to these priorities, we have an opportunity to help promising technologies progress from development and evaluation through to adoption in the NHS."
The people who answered the online survey were mostly White, mostly degree-educated and mostly from better-off areas. The community sessions were meant to reach further, but the researchers kept them deliberately informal and did not collect demographic details, so they cannot say how far that worked. The method itself is not tied to lungs; the authors hope it could be used wherever technology priorities need setting.
The study was funded by LifeArc , a medical research charity.
