NHS England has set out plans to commit £10 billion in funding over the next three years for tech and digital systems, including an AI triage tool for the NHS App, with hopes of turning the investment into £41 billion in total benefits.
The AI triage tool has been trialled at a GP practice in Sussex, where it reportedly resulted in a 29 percent reduction in the number of people queueing on the phone. It will now be rolled out further, with a target to support all NHS App users by April 2028, NHS England outlines. The solution is said to help signpost patients to the most appropriate care, including GP, pharmacy, A&E, and self-care advice, adapting questions depending on responses to get a detailed view of a patient’s condition. It shares information collected with clinicians to help inform their prioritisation of care.
NHS England also notes plans to roll out AI tools for transcribing patient-clinician conversations and generating clinical summaries, beginning with hospital appointments not requiring an overnight stay, where use has been “proven to significantly reduce the amount of time clinicians spent on admin”. It points to a study on ambient voice technology led by Great Ormond Street Hospital, which found that scaling the tech nationally could create space for more than 9,000 extra A&E consultations each day.
NHSE chief executive Jim Mackey said: “The major overhaul of tech we’re making over the next few years will transform services. The new AI tool in the NHS App will help get patients to the best service for their needs first time, whether that’s a GP appointment, trip to a pharmacy or advice on caring for themselves at home, so that clinicians can make sure those most in need of a GP appointment can get one sooner. We’re also seeing huge benefits from the introduction of AI notetaking tools, with clinicians finding they’re able to spend up to a quarter more of their time with patients, so we’re rolling out the tools as quickly as possible across the NHS.”
Wider trend: Health AI
For a recent session focusing on AI in healthcare, HTN was joined by an expert panel including Simon Brown, head of digital at Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Wahida Jabarzai, clinical AI and automation delivery lead at University Hospitals of Northamptonshire and University Hospitals of Leicester; and Julian Wiggins, healthcare solution director at Rackspace Technology. Our panel considered the wider challenge of AI adoption, looking at what makes a successful deployment, introducing AI safely and sustainably at scale, and some of the use cases currently delivering value across their organisations.
The MHRA has published findings from the National Commission into the Regulation of AI in Healthcare research, pointing to the need to balance a desire to use AI in improving patient care and supporting healthcare professionals, with “safe, fast and trusted” regulation. Almost three-quarters of respondents (73 percent) disagreed or strongly disagreed that the current regulatory framework is sufficient to ensure safety and performance standards; with 61 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed with its effectiveness in tackling data governance and data privacy. 61 percent also thought current requirements for clinical evidence are insufficient, and 65 percent pointed to a need for more to be done on post-market surveillance.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research has awarded £8 million to six innovations using AI and digital to speed up diagnosis and improve patient care. Innovations granted a share of the funding include SAMURAI-CT, an AI tool designed to detect “serious findings” from head CT scans with aims of reducing discharge times by more than 20 percent. It is currently being tested across Oxford University Hospitals, Royal Berkshire, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
