UK Government Pledges £21 Million to Deploy AI in the NHS

Highlights:

• The NHS trusts will deploy potential artificial intelligence (AI) tools in British hospitals

• The UK government’s emphasis on AI reflects its desire to make the nation a world leader in AI innovation and research

The UK government has created a £21 million fund to support National Health Service (NHS) trusts. With this financial support, NHS trusts is bound to request government assistance in hastening the adoption of the most potential AI technologies in British hospitals.

The NHS has already been chastised over its work in artificial intelligence. The data-exchange arrangement between the health service and Google’s DeepMind, in particular, raised privacy concerns, prompting a class action lawsuit against the search giant. However, the IT behemoth secured the court’s approval this year, which terminated the legal dispute.

Deb Lowe, National Clinical Director in Stroke Medicine at NHS England, emphasised the adoption of AI-driven software. This software, with decision-making in the early stages of a stroke, lowers the chance of patient disability and aids in maintaining brain function.

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared in June 2023 that leading AI businesses like as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic will provide early or privileged access to AI models. The government hopes that by taking this measure, it will be able to contribute to research programs that assess the potential and security of sophisticated technology.

The UK has already implemented AI in healthcare through the AI Diagnostic Fund, which focuses on the use of AI-powered visualisation along with decision support tools to detect as well as treat cardiovascular and oncological diseases.

According to the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care, NHS Trust tends to submit fund requests for “any AI diagnostic tool” that they believe is acceptable to deploy, but it is expected to show that the plans are cost-effective.

The government intends to implement AI tools by the end of this year which focus on stroke care specifically. In the UK, it was first used in the COVID-19 pandemic for clinical decision-making.

Additionally, in an effort to identify lung cancer at an early stage, the British government plans to use AI to analyse chest X-rays. In the UK, this illness is responsible for about 35,000 fatalities annually.

According to the UK’s Ministry of Health and Social Care, trust may make fund requests to support the use of any AI diagnostic technology that they feel is beneficial and needed, as long as the request is accompanied by a persuasive cost-benefit analysis.