News, Secondary Care

NHSX to lead on new National Artificial Intelligence Lab

Matt Hancock has announced a new £250 million fund for a National Artificial Intelligence Lab to be led by NHSX and the Accelerated Access Collaborative.

NHSX said in an announcement on social media “Today we can announce that we’re going to set up an NHS AI Lab – in partnership with our pals at the Accelerated Access Collaborative. We’re going to focus on practical AI tools that will make a difference to patients, and we’re going to embed data ethics in all of our work.”

“Yes the AI Lab is new money. And yes we need to fix the basics too, but it’s not either/or. Staying ahead of where the tech is going is good for the NHS. One reason why the NHS struggles with interoperability now is that we failed to futureproof our technology in the past.”

Matt Hancock said “I want the NHS to be the very best it can be and to do that we need to harness technology.”

“Today we are announcing a new AI Lab in NHSX. I want the Lab to generate cutting edge technology to diagnose sepsis, stroke and heart attacks, before symptoms appear. Geonmic testing can predict which conditions we can be susceptible to and that means we can take preventative measures.”

“We are on the cusp of a huge health tech revolution that could transform patient experience by making the NHS a truly predictive, preventive and personalised health and care service.”

“The experts tell us that because of our NHS and our tech talent, the UK could be the world leader in these advances in healthcare, so I’m determined to give the NHS the chance to be the world leader in saving lives through artificial intelligence and genomics.”

The announcement was made in this video:

The AI Lab will bring together the industry’s best academics, specialists and technology companies. The aims include:

  • improve cancer screening by speeding up the results of tests, including mammograms, brain scans, eye scans and heart monitoring
  • use predictive models to better estimate future needs of beds, drugs, devices or surgeries
  • identify which patients could be more easily treated in the community, reducing the pressure on the NHS and helping patients receive treatment closer to home
  • identify patients most at risk of diseases such as heart disease or dementia, allowing for earlier diagnosis and cheaper, more focused, personalised prevention
  • build systems to detect people at risk of post-operative complications, infections or requiring follow-up from clinicians, improving patient safety and reducing readmission rates
  • upskill the NHS workforce so they can use AI systems for day-to-day tasks
  • inspect algorithms already used by the NHS to increase the standards of AIsafety, making systems fairer, more robust and ensuring patient confidentiality is protected
  • automate routine admin tasks to free up clinicians so more time can be spent with patients

Commenting on the news, Chris Scarisbrick from Sectra, said “The government’s £250m pledge for artificial intelligence in the NHS, and the announcement of a new national artificial intelligence laboratory, has the potential to be great news in enhancing the ability to diagnose serious illnesses. Though it certainly cannot replace radiologists and other NHS diagnostic professionals, AI can have a big impact on helping the health service’s increasingly pressured diagnostic services. But, whilst new money in this arena is good, AI will only work if we have the right leadership. Other industries are already recruiting chief AI officers. Now is the perfect opportunity for NHS organisations to do the same – or to go one step further and create the role of chief clinical AI officers. The NHS needs people with the authority to drive AI applications into clinical settings where they are accepted, where they can make a difference to patient outcomes and working lives, and where they can meet organisational, regional and national needs.”

Dr Simon Wallace, Chief clinical information officer, Nuance Communications “This move – as part of additional investment in artificial intelligence from the NHS – is another step towards using disruptive technology to enhance patient care, by helping clinicians to focus on the most important cases and reduce the growing burdens of admin.”

“AI is already supporting clinicians across NHS trusts, such as Homerton – which has deployed AI-enabled speech recognition to cut the turnaround time on clinical letters to patients following consultations. Reducing this turnaround time from 12-17 days to two – three – and at a saving of more than £150,000 per year in outsourced transcription costs – the Trust has benefited significantly from deploying such tech.”

“This is only the beginning for AI in healthcare. Tech such as ambient clinical intelligence has the ability to listen to physician-patient conversations and enable clinical documentation to draft itself during the consultation, turning natural language into coherent clinical records.”

 

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