New NHS AI laboratory
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is setting up a national artificial intelligence laboratory to improve patient care and enhance research.
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is setting up a national artificial intelligence laboratory to improve patient care and enhance research.
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that £250 million will be spent on boosting AI within the NHS. He spoke to BBC News about AI’s potential: “The power of AI to improve medicine, to save lives, to improve the way treatments are done, that power is enormous. We've got the opportunity to be one of the leading countries in the world at using this new technology. I want the NHS, through its AI lab, to actually be searching itself for new insights that are going to save lives.”
Challenges facing the uptake of AI relate to protecting patient data, enhancing cyber security and training staff. Dr Nicola Strickland, President of the Royal College of Radiologists, said: “I expect radiologists to be leaders in using AI algorithms to assist them, provided they can see evidence that these AI algorithms have been developed using large enough, properly curated data and rigorously validated and tested.”