North East initiative unlocks support for tens of thousands of “hidden” carers
By Integrated Care Journal
More than one in ten people living in the North East are known to be providing care for someone – the highest proportion in the UK.
Tens of thousands of unpaid carers living across the North East of England have unlocked crucial support over the last year, thanks to the launch of a landmark initiative. The tech-powered initiative was first rolled out across the North East in June 2024 and has already boosted support for 95,000 unpaid carers living in the region.
Delivered through a collaboration between thirteen local authorities in partnership with the carer-led community Mobilise, the initiative provides the North East’s vital caring community with access to an added layer of on-demand support, through services including an online community forum and tools to help claim financial support. This builds upon the support available through local carers organisations.
The North East has the largest proportion of unpaid carers in the UK, with more than one in ten people living in the region known to be providing care for someone – although the true figure could be far higher.
Digital services boost support for “hidden” carers
According to new research, more than a third of people looking after someone take over three years to recognise their caring roles, meaning many may not realise they are entitled to support. The North East initiative is unlocking support sooner for these ‘hidden’ carers: 4 in 5 (81 per cent) people accessing the online services had not previously engaged with any support.
The online services, which can be accessed 24/7 as well as remotely, are also empowering local carers to access ‘out of hours’ support. More than half (58 per cent) of those who have found support through the initiative are relying on the services outside of working hours.
Steph Downey, Strategic Director for Integrated Adults and Social Care Services (DASS) at Gateshead Council, said of the initiative: “We are so proud of the impact this initiative is having for unpaid carers within our community. Reaching and supporting those with caring responsibilities is a vital priority – and we’re especially keen to reach more ‘hidden’ carers who may not have accessed support before. This partnership is helping us to identify these people sooner and provide on-demand support to anyone who is caring in the region.”
The impact of the North East initiative highlights the need for increased awareness of different caring roles, and the role which round-the-clock support can play in widening access to support. For example, those who juggle caring with paid jobs or care full-time may be restricted around the times that they can access support.
Peter from Redcar and Cleveland who cares for his wife, said: “I’ve been married to my wife for 42 years, and cared for her for the past 11 plus years. I’ve juggled my caring role with full time work for the majority of this time. Currently, I spend all the hours of the day that I can visiting my wife whilst she’s in hospital. This means that dinner time is the only real chance I get to focus on myself and reflect. Being a carer isn’t easy, and it can be during these quieter moments that I’ve found myself struggling in the past and looking for support. This is when having a support network available 24/7 can make all the difference. Other Mobilise users and care experts – people with first-hand experience of what I’m going through – are always there to reply, relate, and urge me on.”
Suzanne Bourne, Head of Carer Support at Mobilise, added: “Not everyone identifies as a carer. But everyone who looks after someone should be aware of their entitlement to support, and be able to access services that fit around their schedules and needs. It’s so encouraging to see the impact that our online community is having across the North East, especially for those who are accessing support for the first time. It’s a privilege to be working with the Local Authorities, Carers Centres’ and caring organisations across the region to help more carers feel seen and supported.”
The digital services are available across all of the following North East regions: South Tyneside, Northumberland, County Durham, Cumberland, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar and Cleveland, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Hartlepool, North Tyneside, Gateshead, and Darlington.
To access the support, see here. For more information about the Mobilise community, see here.
Integrating care records is good. Using intelligence to make them active is better
By Dr Paul Deffley
What is needed for the single patient record to deliver intended benefits? Dr Paul Deffley, Chief Medical Officer for Alcidion and former NHS commissioning professional, considers how emerging policy could help patient record systems to become more active and intelligent, enhancing the delivery of care.
A single patient record already exists in the NHS. Or at least, that’s a perception shared by many. A survey of a thousand members of the public, conducted by NHS Confederation-hosted organisation Understanding Patient Data, found that more than six in 10 UK citizens believed information on their NHS history was already collated in a single repository.
A somewhat different reality is known to most people working in the health service. Anyone who has worked in healthcare policy long enough will know that overcoming the challenge of fragmented records has long been a priority for successive NHS and Department of Health leaders.
Following the publication of the NHS 10-Year Health Plan, it is timely to reflect on how the pervasive matter of fragmented records will be overcome. It appears that money will be available after Chancellor Rachel Reeves committed £10bn for NHS digitisation in June’s spending review, which specifies that a single patient NHS record will mean “every part of the health service has a full picture of a patient’s care”.
Integrating care records is good. But unless we make them active – capable of surfacing insights, prompting actions, and working seamlessly within clinical workflows – we risk building a vast digital filing cabinet that gathers dust.
Providers, systems, suppliers, and the thousands of data controllers that exist in healthcare, will all have a role to play in making such a plan reality and undoubtedly, with historic attempts having been abandoned in the past, issues such as the safeguarding of data will be key.
Many other questions must also be asked as the ambition advances to finally overcome data silos. Here’s what four of those questions might be:
Liberating data: What’s the opportunity?
There is already an enormous amount of data captured throughout the patient’s journey. Much of this data sits within the fragmented landscape of applications that form the backbone of health IT systems. Pulling all this data into a single patient record represents enormous complexity and cost, and much of the data will not be of value to future care needs.
The key to a valuable single digital patient record is accessing the pertinent information when it is needed. Liberating the valuable information pertinent to the situation.
Before we go into how an active integrated patient record might be achieved, asking why such a record needs to be created is essential. Some answers have been very well documented over the years – with integrated data opening opportunities for patients not having to repeat themselves, for better informed care, informed patients, and informed research, as well as enhancing decisions that lead to safer care provision.
Whatever transcends into policy or even legislation, designing and delivering record systems that are both useful and used poses two questions: What do clinicians really need from an integrated record? And what will benefit patients?
Patient empowerment will be key against a policy backdrop of prevention – and records will undoubtedly need to prompt and present individuals with the right information to make informed choices about their care. However, the way patients continue to both consume and contribute to that data will change – and strategic approaches must respond accordingly.
Wearables, for example, have become a rich source of data that often remains excluded from patient records. We need to think about how that data and other datasets that haven’t even been conceived yet can be better contribute to the comprehensive picture of a patient’s health. And we need to consider how data in a new single record can be integrated into the digital systems that clinicians actually use in their workflows, rather than creating a standalone silo that sits in the corner of a ward or on an app that never gets accessed.
How can emerging intelligence enable record solutions to be more active?
So, how could a single patient record be put into practice? Simply building a bigger record risks creating a very large database of patient data – something many NHS providers and professionals I speak to are eager to avoid. Particularly those already benefitting from solutions that alleviate the clinical cognitive burden and that are proactive in clinical decision support.
We need to build a solution that can work as an ally to patients and clinicians alike, and that is futureproofed to leverage emerging technologies. Every health and care worker might soon have their own generative AI assistant that can interrogate an integrated record, provide them with support or guidance, and advise on the likelihood of certain actions being a success.
The AI assistant is likely to have the capability to go out and interrogate a wide range of data sources to enrich the integrated record, making a large ‘single’ database unnecessary. Busy clinicians will no longer need to spend their time and effort searching for insight. As we develop record solutions that will take advantage of these capabilities, it is vital that the integrated care record becomes available for every health and care workflow.
The evidence that this works can already be seen in existing technology deployments – I’ve witnessed first-hand the recent benefits of integrating the Great North Care Record in one trust’s EPR, a valuable data source that has exploded in use by making it easy for clinical teams to access. It’s about more than creating a view of such data – this is about integrating data into the forms, pathways, and processes that clinicians use.
Does the NHS need a single record? Or a platform? Or both?
A single patient record is a fantastically clear way to articulate what is trying to be achieved. However, a single patient record does not mean a very large database, poorly designed into care workflows. Access to an integrated record that is populated with contextually rich and relevant data from multiple sources is a much more realistic and powerful way of delivering this capability to our clinicians. In making this happen, we need to be equally articulate about how we will get there from the earliest of stages.
That in part means learning from what has come before so that the programme can be differentiated. Large digital health programmes around the world have sometimes encountered failed adoption and escalating cost, when they have built first, and thought later, about how to integrate the data and insights into clinical workflows.
There is a need to think actively about the application of data in a clinical context, then design the data and intelligence layer that sits behind an integrated record in order to make the system a success, and to ensure we deliver active systems of engagement, rather than simply passive records.
Integrated care systems have a crucial role here – not just in adoption, but in defining what success looks like for local populations. The single patient record must be flexible enough to accommodate these differing priorities, without becoming fragmented all over again. We must be cautious not to conflate ‘single’ with ‘centralised’. A national strategy must enable local adaptability – so that records can support different services, care models, and patient needs across systems.
Who are we building this for?
Population health, research possibilities, changing our understanding of illness – all critical use cases for liberating and consolidating patient data. However, we need to start by meeting the needs of frontline clinicians and patients.
Clinicians need to be able to make good decisions first time to avoid duplication and waste that a stretched system can no longer withstand.
The record has to be an integral point of a patient encounter for it to be an effective partner and one that can then share insights across the integrated system. Imagine if were possible to prevent unnecessary readmissions by flagging patients at risk based on their complete care history, or eliminate duplicate diagnostic tests by providing real-time visibility into recent procedures across different departments and facilities.
Consider the efficiency gains when emergency department clinicians can instantly access a patient’s complete medication history, allergies, and recent specialist consultations rather than starting from scratch or waiting for paper records to be located. This reduces diagnostic time, prevents adverse drug interactions, and enables more targeted treatment protocols.
In surgical settings, integrated records can streamline pre-operative assessments by automatically surfacing relevant imaging, lab results, and specialist recommendations, reducing the need for repeat consultations and accelerating time to surgery. Post-operatively, the same system can trigger appropriate follow-up care protocols and coordinate discharge planning across multiple disciplines.
The efficiency multiplier effect becomes clear when considering how many hours clinicians currently spend searching for information, making phone calls to other departments, or repeating assessments that have already been completed elsewhere in the system. An integrated record that serves as a true clinical partner transforms these time-intensive activities into seamless, data-driven workflows that keep clinicians focused on direct patient care rather than administrative tasks.
As NHS waiting lists climb and pressures on healthcare delivery mount, digital twin technology offers a potentially transformative opportunity. Ram Rajaraman, Healthcare and Life Sciences Industry Leader at Quantexa, explores how creating real-time, data-driven digital replicas of healthcare systems and patient populations could revolutionise prevention, care delivery, and resource planning across the NHS – unlocking a smarter, more predictive approach to population health.
In May, the NHS announced that waiting lists for routine treatment in hospitals had risen for the first time in seven months, despite being out of winter pressure season. The waiting list sits at 7.42mn appointments at the end of March, a steep increase of 18,751 from February.
While it is wholly acknowledged that waiting lists tend to fluctuate with natural spikes in the system, this data comes at a time in which the Labour government finds itself under the spotlight to reduce waiting lists and improve overall NHS performance.
Wes Streeting, whose mission for this parliamentary term is to revamp healthcare efficiency, has already made some radical changes with a view to delivering on this promise. The new 10-Year Health Plan laid out the importance of making the NHS the most “digitally accessible” system in the world. Moves have been made in this direction by announcing promising upgrades to the NHS App that enable its use as a digital front door to the entire NHS.
The department has also teased its ambition to develop a ‘Single Patient Record’ for each NHS patient, using their appointment history and medical records across care specialties. The ambition is that each patient can then seamlessly access care providers across the NHS, without having to repeat their story.
I’d argue for taking this one step further and creating a 360-degree identity of each citizen within their context. Connecting their data across government departments, educational institutions and other public services will allow healthcare providers a full understanding of each patient case.
What are digital twins?
It’s not enough to address individual problem areas such as growing concerns about mental health or challenges with the demand and strain on the system. Instead, there is increasing pressure on government to tackle these systemic issues at their core – using patient data to create a 360-degree identity of each citizen within their context and improve overall population health.
One of the ways to meet these challenges effectively is by embracing digital twins. Digital twins are gaining significant traction as more industries recognise their value in identifying how we tackle complex problems. Put simply, a digital twin works by replicating a physical asset in a digital world, created using smart sensors and data from the original source to model and predict how something will or could behave.
System digital twins are a virtual representation of a real-world system. The twin is made first as a digital model of the real system, using simulations, 3D models or system diagrams. System data can then be integrated into the model continuously or at regular intervals, allowing it to update in real-time. People, places and concepts can be fed into the twin to mirror the current state of the physical system. That means if something in the real system changes, the twin can reflect this immediately.
Simulating society through data integration
Digital twins are currently most often used across supply chain industries to improve real-time insights around customer journeys, in-transit inventory and staffing, and modelling against supply chain variability (McKinsey). The technology is gradually becoming more commonplace – often used in the manufacturing industry to produce models – and Gartner projects that by 2034, global revenue for simulation digital twins will reach $379 billion.
The healthcare industry is starting to adopt digital twins, with pharmaceutical companies embracing them for shipment operations and forecasting in clinical trial labs. But their potential expands beyond clinical trials, and they can be implemented to forecast trends and make predictive analysis about population health. If NHS patient data is fed into the digital twin, data engineers can then model scenarios on the patient population, to gather patient-level insights in the case of unexpected scenarios. To unpack how we can use this innovation to improve health outcomes, it first needs to be understood.
For example, Britain’s life expectancy crisis is developing, with one community reporting male life expectancy on par with war-torn Syria. Digital twins would allow for analysis of why life expectancy is worsening, using a trial-and-error approach to solutions without the need to run studies on the public. Alternatively, if the UK sees a sudden rapid rise of immigration, engineers can simulate the effect on population health with a rise in the spread of foreign diseases and an increase in pressure on the NHS.
Digital twins can be used to develop clinical trials that will get quick and accurate results. Now that the government has announced it will be automatically inviting patients to join clinical trials based on their health data and additional insights, digital twins can map clinical trial outcomes to optimise design for ideal outcomes. This also allows researchers to scale drug discovery, as they can model patient data to get faster and more personalised research.
A third opportunity for digital twins to contribute to healthcare and patient wellbeing is through overall hospital management design and care coordination. By taking a more predictive lens on patient outcomes, hospital staff can staff their treatment centres accordingly and apply the right level of resource.
There is great opportunity for predictive analytics that traditional models of aggregated intelligence didn’t have. As one of the government’s key pillars is “prevention over treatment”, taking advantage of this technology will give the UK’s health service a leg up in the future of its population health.
Rethinking local healthcare with digital twins
The NHS’s regional split must also be used to the system’s advantage when dealing with population health. Integrated care boards (ICBs) and NHS trusts have access to a whole network of health data that applies to their local region, and regional health datasets can be instrumental to the national health ecosystem.
To paint the picture of why regional health data is important, regions with ageing populations may see patterns in diseases that affect an older age group and therefore may be disproportionately reliant on community care. Urban populations may see more illnesses spike from air and water quality issues than a rural population. While all patient data feeds into a wider system, it’s important for ICBs to understand their own geographical challenges.
Regional and local data is incredibly valuable, but currently underused. By beginning to implement digital twin technology at a regional level, ICBs and trusts can start analysing their regional health trends to understand resourcing through a predictive lens. This means that under increasing waiting list pressure or staff shortages, organisations within the NHS can see where they’re lacking, and apply more resources to specific care specialties that will be most valuable for their patients.
Digital twins can also be used to identify regional cohorts of patients that would benefit from prevention initiatives – for example the child flu vaccine, or a diabetes prevention programme. Through a digital twin simulation, local organisations can identify preventative programmes that will be beneficial for their population. And conversely, understanding the potential outcomes of these patients through a digital twin can help determine the cohort.
If able to tackle public health through greater predictivity and prevention, digital twins quickly unlock benefits and rapid innovation to begin improving outcomes at scale. The potential benefits for digital twins go beyond hospital management and improving the efficiency of patient care – there are additional benefits like drug discovery, R&D and disease prevention that have the potential to improve overall population health.
The National Digital Twin Programme has been developed to ensure that the digital twin market is built on secure, trustworthy and ethical standards, while maintaining interoperability and adaptability. There is still a lot of debate around the ethics of using NHS patient data. The way I see it, is that using patient data is not only acceptable – but necessary – when the outcome goes back into patient health. It’s not about arbitrarily collecting patient data, but the safe and secure management of patient data for good.
It is in all our interests to prevent the impact of the next global pandemic, or even just ensure that our neighbours are all receiving a high standard of care. The NHS is one of the largest banks of healthcare data in the world, and we need to use it to improve care for generations to come.
SAR pressures on the NHS: Why automation is now critical
By Sara Yirrell
Subject Access Requests (SARs) are rising sharply across the NHS, placing increasing strain on trusts. With mounting regulatory pressure and limited resources, Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust has taken action, introducing automation to ensure timely responses and protect sensitive patient data.
The number of Subject Access Requests (SARs) being submitted to the NHS is mushrooming year-on-year, and if trusts are left to manage with their current technology set up, many run the risk of falling behind the one-month deadline to complete each request and falling foul of regulations because they have neither the time, nor capacity to keep up with demand.
With the NHS 10-Year Plan also now published, aimed at modernising the health service in England and ensuring it is fit for purpose, decisions must be made on how to streamline core processes and make the whole experience better for not only people working within the NHS, but crucially, the people using it: the patients.
Regulatory requirements such as the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 are growing in complexity, and healthcare organisations need robust systems in place to protect sensitive data, and help them respond quickly and efficiently to demands.
Case study: Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust
Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust is seeing the number of SARs increase by around 100 a year, and has currently received around 700 requests in so far 2025.
Sarah Briggs, Data Protection Manager at the Trust, explains that the SARs were from mixed sources and varied, including from the patients themselves; a solicitor acting on their behalf; police officers that are carrying out investigations; or councils that might be looking into protection orders. They also come from regulatory bodies looking at the Trust’s fitness to practice within the NHS.
She says the Trust had seen an increase in people exercising other rights as well, such as the right to rectification, having things amended or removed completely, and reporting that their records have been accessed inappropriately.
The matter has been exacerbated by the inclusion of emails and email trails, which increases the number of documents needing attention, she added.
Drowning in administration
Briggs said the sheer number of SARs was beginning to weigh the team down and cause sleepless nights.
“The sheer volume of SARs and the different challenges for different types of requests is our biggest challenge,” she says. “We’re a mental health Trust, so some of the records we have on patients with a long history of mental health issues can mean their records are huge. The problems start with struggling to get the records out of the system due to the size of the file which crashed the systems.”
Briggs says the more requests that came in, the more the team were stretched, and the harder it became to hit deadlines.
“You’re not on top of your targets or your workload, and it is really flattening for people not being able to feel like they were doing a good job. As the requests increased, we were not able to spend the time we wanted and it often felt like we were just firefighting,” Briggs adds.
Finding a better alternative
It was the above challenges, and the need for a new approach to SARs, that spurred the Trust to start looking into alternative technology
Briggs says that when she and her team started using Smartbox.ai technology, the functionality it added helped to reduce stress among her team almost immediately.
“The fact Smartbox.ai could handle emails was a massive thing. As was one of the functions – de-threading – which meant we could get rid of duplicates and identify chains of emails,” she says. “It also meant we didn’t have to import Exchange files into our own Outlook, meaning that multiple people could be working on a SAR at the same time which helps to save time and allows us to swap and change tasks when we need to.”
Briggs says that one example of a SAR she received involved 19,000 emails, but by using Smartbox.ai’s technology to remove duplicates, it reduced the number down to a ‘more manageable’ 1,800 files.
“It made such a difference about my own approach to a task and made you feel better about doing it,” Briggs emphasises. “We can also split documents into manageable chunks with Smartbox, rather than feeling overwhelmed.”
Another feature that was a game-changer – the Dictionary function – allows users to create lists of words or ‘risk indicators’ that need to be removed/redacted and implement them immediately.
“With mental health records there is a lot of content in there and sensitive words such as suicide, assault, termination,” explains Briggs. “This tool will help us ensure we don’t miss anything that could cause somebody harm and distress.”
She added that the option to use different colour redaction highlighters was a useful function which made it easier to explain away the information underneath should questions arise.
Communication is key
Another key positive about working with Smartbox.ai is its willingness to listen to feedback and act on it, Briggs claims.
For example, when her Trust first started using the technology, redactions were in black, but Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust always redacts information in white, which could have been a serious issue. But after a consultation with Smartbox.ai, the Trust’s needs were taken into account, and that functionality was built into their version of the software.
Simply by listening to its customer needs and acting on it, Smartbox.ai made a big impact, Briggs concludes, leaving her happy to recommend the technology to other Trusts.
“If you are working with technology like Smartbox.ai that is more intuitive and is keeping up with and adapting to how you need to work, it is easier for us to bring on new staff to train and it is easier for them to learn. I would say it is worth other Trusts, particularly Mental Health Trusts, looking into Smartbox.ai.”
If you need help streamlining your SAR processes and are drowning in administrative paperwork, get in touch with Smartbox.ai today and see how we can help you.
NHS long-term plan, in the short-term: Where tech must help now.
By Dr Mark Ratnarajah
Strategic realignment over the next 10 years is important. But what are the practical, inarguable early wins the government must try to achieve for an NHS now? Dr Mark Ratnarajah, UK Managing Director of C2-Ai and practising NHS paediatrician, offers some answers.
As the unveiling of the long-awaited NHS 10-Year Health Plan rapidly approaches, the need for certainty and direction has never been more pressing.
Staff at the centre are already being reorganised, systems are being re-defined, and productivity and workforce pressures facing the frontline mean that new ways of solving pervasive problems are all but guaranteed to be heralded as the plan hits the shelves.
The Chancellor’s June spending review has earmarked £10bn for digital – but looking beyond the NHS App and a new single patient record, how might this money be used to respond to pressures with new care models, and what must be done much more immediately rather than over the decade?
Here’s seven priorities the new long-term plan must address in the short-term.
Managing electives, preventing demand escalation
A key election pledge, the elective backlog will undoubtedly be prominent in the plan. Though important progress has been observed, NHS Confederation’s recent annual conference reminded delegates that millions of people are still on waiting lists. Addressing the real problem is however more complex than counting numbers.
The underpinning matter is how to manage demand and serve those in greatest need when they need it, so that they don’t deteriorate and subsequently compound demand growth. That’s a complex question but it is possible to answer by a shift in thinking: one where systems respond to a complete individual’s risks and consider the wider human impact, so that we don’t just shift demand from outpatients to A&E or primary care, and inadvertently push patients into other costly parts of the health system.
An immediate opportunity is to learn from pioneers, who have put technology to good use in identifying patients at risk of harm or added complexity while waiting. Trusts and systems have responded with interventions in the community to prevent downstream escalations. In those examples entire patient cohorts have been better supported, and have shown reduced emergency attendances, complications, and lengths of stay.
The plan’s response must be about more than keeping things hanging together. It must be about supporting the customer: the patient; especially if the NHS is to manage an anticipated overall 40 per cent growth in demand in the next 10 years – suggested by compound growth metrics being observed.
Driving prevention, anticipatory health, new citizen responsibilities
Prevention too has sat on healthcare conference agendas for decades. Now it must become reality. In part that means surfacing hidden risks, targeting interventions in communities to avoid harm, and looking beyond boundaries: enabling collaborative data insights on risk across NHS and local government.
New anticipatory pathways are what this really means in practice: predicting health needs at the earliest point. Proactive, rather than passive, healthcare means reducing reliance on the reactive and ensuring fewer patients coming through the front door. We need to address individuals’ needs at-scale before they manifest themselves in expensive ways that are not optimal for the patient or system.
Giving patients agency with targeted data is a must so they are participants and empowered to direct their own health decisions; and to ensure better readiness for the inevitable encounters such as surgery.
As citizens we need to take more responsibility. In mental health services patients are sometimes asked to commit to a contract that includes their responsibility. We might see more of that in managing more long-term conditions. That can only work if we can understand what specifically we expect patients to do to make a difference – technology-driven insight can make that relevant for each patient’s risks. We might better alert patients to the community activities that can help them, and we might better ensure the provision of those facilities to move from medicalisation to a wellness and wellbeing focus.
Supporting the new ICS landscape to manage local demand
Organisations designed by nature to enable cross-organisation convergence around patients, integrated care boards are seeing systemic overhaul just a few years after their creation.
As budgets and headcount are cut, and ICS consolidation advances, they could benefit from technology more than ever in gaining the insights to understand local needs and organise health and social care service configurations.
These organisations will remain central in enabling care to move closer to communities and in preventing downstream cost and pressure. Technology suppliers must support them during a turbulent time so that they can evidence decisions on where and how to deploy resource to address wider determinants of ill health, to respond to citizens and not just patient needs, and to avoid a refocus back on acute care.
Delivering the digital and data revolution
Digital to analogue is something that must now succeed to enable integrated care and decision-making.
New and innovative ideas must be able to scale where they show impact. And we must make a success where commitment has been made. Politics aside, imagine the conversations we could have been having about digital, rather than a focus on moving away from paper, if the National Programme for IT had actually succeeded.
We now need to focus on turning insight into action, on building optimised pathways of care, and on how we can make better decisions with amenable and accessible data that can change practice.
Improving maternity and peri-natal safety
Not in itself one of the three shifts, but maternity safety continues to hit headlines. The ability to deliver safe care here is the barometer for the health service. Well mothers and babies must expect to go in healthy and come out healthy. If we fail that, then we have a key confidence issue for the wider NHS.
Equally, if we can get maternity right, then we can probably get everything else right. In the short term the plan has an opportunity to bring about renewed transparency in quality and safety. That means more than investigations and reports that only shed light on matters after they have become scandals. It also means doing more than measuring compliance with processes through audit.
At least some of the billions being used for technology could be turned to address and prevent avoidable harm in maternity through data-driven insight, that allows early identification of service and system-level problems. There is an opportunity to create new intelligence, but only if we embrace a learning culture.
Building a learning, safe NHS
The fact that safety scandals continue to emerge shows there is more to do to ensure a culture of learning in the health service. Just as real-time insights could prevent harm happening for maternity, the same is true for other services across health and care. Reliance on reports that take place once every few years is not enough. A culture of ongoing transparency, where we can be open about mistakes, must be the direction of travel.
Some of the best performing hospitals in the world are already doing this. Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden, for example, delivers some of the best survival and complication outcomes in the world for severely injured and unwell patients. It has used UK grown technology to prove this, and in a relentless pursuit of quality, continuously works to understand and act on any sub-optimal outcomes. Such approaches could be equally impactful in the UK to allow us to both celebrate excellence and deliver support where it is needed most.
Health equals wealth, and vice versa?
There was a reassuring investment in health in the spending review. But with cuts to other government departments, and the need to respond to ever rising global insecurity, public spending is under closer scrutiny than ever.
To deliver best value, the coming plan might therefore ask: what must we stop doing in order to fund new models of care delivery.
It might also ask questions about the relevance of industries that sit around the NHS to GDP – notably health tech, pharma and life sciences. Could the globally competitive nature of these UK companies be of interest as a means of wealth generation for the country, and to ensure it can continue to afford a health service?
And with phrases like ‘wealth is health, and health is wealth’ being increasingly heard, the plan might consider how a thriving SME sector that invests in the communities it serves could be a positive source for tackling inequity that so often leads to costly ill-health – wealth being a driver of health, and indeed the resilience of the nation.
Dr Mark Ratnarajah, Managing Director, C2-Ai and practising NHS paediatrician
Government reveals clinical trials boost with 10-Year Plan announcement
By Integrated Care Journal
The government is pledging to increase access to clinical trials for millions under its Plan for Change, which will eventually see the NHS App notify users of clinical trials based on their health data and interests.
The government has pledged to increase access to clinical trials for millions as part of its drive to modernise patient care in the NHS and drive economic growth. The Plan for Change, released as part of the upcoming 10-Year Health Plan, will enable NHS App users to browse and find trials suited their needs and interests, via the NIHR Be Part of Research service on the App.
The plan also aims to increase access to new treatments by accelerating trial set-up times and turning the UK into a ‘hotbed of innovation’. Through the App, public reporting will show which NHS trusts are delivering on trials and which area falling behind, with future funding set to be prioritised for the best performing trusts.
Eventually the plan will see the NHS App automatically match patients with studies based on their own health data and interests, sending push notifications to users’ phone about relevant new trials to sign up to.
It comes as the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) launches a UK-wide recruitment drive for clinical trials – the biggest ever health research campaign – to get as many people involved in research as possible. Adults across the UK are being urged to register, with underrepresented groups including young people, Black people and people of South Asian heritage particularly encouraged to sign up, at bepartofresearch.uk.
The 10-Year Health Plan will aim to bring transparency over which NHS trusts are performing well in clinical trials, and which are not. All NHS trusts and organisations will need to submit data on the number of trials being conducted and the amount of progress being made.
Public reporting will show the number of trials sponsored by both commercial and non-commercial sponsors at specific trusts and other organisations, including universities or primary care sites. It will reveal to the government, patients, investors, and Trust boards which NHS organisations are performing well and which are falling behind. Government investment will only be prioritised for the Trusts that can prove they can support the NHS to deliver the treatments of tomorrow.
Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, said: “The UK has been at the forefront of scientific and medical discovery throughout our history. Some country will lead the charge in the emerging revolution in life sciences, and why shouldn’t it be Britain?
“The 10-Year plan for health will marry the genius of our country’s leading scientific minds, with the care and compassion of our health service, to put NHS patients at the front of the queue for new cutting-edge treatments.”
In recent years, the UK has fallen behind as a global destination for these trials, with patients and the wider economy missing out. It takes around 100 days to set up a trial in Spain, but around 250 days in the NHS. The plan will see commercial clinical trial set-up times fall to 150 days or less by March 2026 – this will be the most ambitious reduction in trial set-up times in British history.
The government is now pledging to cut set up times for clinical trials. Currently, trials have to agree separate contracts with each part of the NHS they want to be involved. The plan will introduce a national standardised contract which can save months of wasted time, as well as simplifying paperwork to remove duplication on technical assurances.
This means if any authority asks for evidence from a study, they can provide it once without having to spend time reframing that evidence differently to meet a separate criteria for another authority.
In the coming weeks, the government will publish its 10-Year Health Plan. The plan aims to restore the UK’s position as a world leader in clinical trials, enabling it to attract global talent and drive investment into the UK. The government hopes that this will spur economic growth, improve the standard of care to support a healthier population, and make the NHS more financially sustainable.
Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Chief Executive Officer of the NIHR said: “We know the benefits of embedding clinical research across the NHS and beyond. It leads to better care for patients, more opportunities for our workforce and provides a huge economic benefit for our health and care system. Integrated into the NHS App, the NIHR Be Part of Research service enables members of the public to be matched to vital trials, ensuring the best and latest treatments and care get to the NHS quicker.
“Ensuring all sites are consistently meeting the 150-day or less set-up time will bring us to the starting line, but together we aim to go further, faster to ensure the UK is a global destination for clinical research to improve the health and wealth of the nation.”
Dr Vin Diwakar, Clinical Transformation Director at NHS England, said: “The NHS App is transforming how people manage their healthcare, with new features letting them see their test results or check when prescriptions are ready to collect – all at the tap of a screen.
“We’re making it easier to sign up for clinical trials through the NHS App so patients can access new treatments and technologies earlier, improving their quality of care.
“The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – which makes sure that medicines and healthcare products available in the UK are safe and effective – has already improved its performance.”
Nicola Perrin, Chief Executive of the Association of Medical Research Charities, commented: “Clinical trials are good for patients, the NHS and the economy. But both commercial and non-commercial trials in the UK have closed because of failures to recruit.
“It’s encouraging to see the government recognise that boosting access to clinical trials must be a key part of the 10 Year Health Plan. Transforming clinical trials is an important step in truly embedding research in the NHS, securing the UK’s position as a leader in life sciences and offering a lifeline to patients.”
North West extends digital support for up to 275k unpaid carers
By Integrated Care Journal
The move sees Wigan Council join a growing number of local authorities aiming to better support unpaid carers through accessible, round-the-clock digital tools and resources.
Up to 275,000 unpaid carers living across the North West of England can now access an expanded range of support services, including an online community forum and tools to help claim financial support, as the region looks to boost help for this vital community.
This milestone comes as Wigan Council announces it has become the latest local authority in the North West to roll-out a tech-powered initiative designed to connect and support those looking after friends, family and neighbours. This support is being delivered in partnership with the UK’s largest community of unpaid carers, Mobilise.
This latest backing from Wigan Council takes the number of North West carers able to access the digital support to up to 275,000.
At least 31,442 people identify as unpaid carers in Wigan, comprising 1 in 10 of the local population. The new initiative will provide an added layer of on-demand support for anyone who looks after someone in the area, including those who may not identify as ‘carers’ or realise they are entitled to support.
As part of this, the initiative aims to uncover and widen access to support for 3,900 people who have not previously engaged with any support in Wigan.
Wigan Council follows nine local authorities in Cheshire and Merseyside who joined the same initiative in October last year. This saw 243,000 unpaid carers in Cheshire and Merseyside gain access to the tech-powered support. 8 in 10 (79 per cent) Cheshire and Merseyside carers had not accessed any support prior to the digital initiative rolling out across the region.
The new services can be accessed remotely via an online hub and include:
An online peer community of hundreds of thousands of fellow carers from across the UK, with a community forum and regular events to share experiences and advice
Self-service tools to help carers understand the different benefits they may be entitled to (including Carer’s Allowance), check their eligibility, and access different support
Tailored support guides on everything from how to balance caring with full-time work, to managing personal health and wellbeing while looking after someone else
Information on carers’ rights and relevant social care law, in line with the latest government guidance
An AI-powered ‘Mobilise Assistant’ is also available to help carers quickly and easily find the specific information, resources or support that they need, using their own words.
In Cheshire and Merseyside, the majority (51 per cent) of carers currently accessing these digital services rely on the support outside of working hours. Now also available to carers living in Wigan, the on-demand offering will supplement existing support in the region, including in-person services provided by local organisations such as the Wigan & Leigh Carers Centre.
Councillor Angela Coleman the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Services at Liverpool City Council, commented: “Our priority is ensuring that all carers living in Liverpool can access the support they need, when they need it. Partnering with Mobilise to offer on-demand, remotely available services have helped extend our ability to deliver this support. With more carers engaging with support for the first time, and the majority accessing the new services outside of working hours, the impact is already clear to see.”
The initiative in both Wigan and Cheshire and Merseyside is being funded by the Government’s Accelerating Reform Fund.
For more information about the support now available in Wigan, see here. For more information about the support available across Cheshire and Merseyside, see here. To start accessing support today, the Mobilise app can be downloaded via the Apple App Store or Google Play, with more information available on Mobilise’s website.
Case study 1:
Alison and her husband
Alison Lodder, who cares for her husband in the North West, said: “My husband was diagnosed with MS almost thirty years ago, just two years after we got married. I’ve cared for him ever since. During my caring journey, I’ve found different forms of support have helped at different times. For example, my local carers centre has been a lifeline in the past, and a care worker now comes to the house to provide more regular support whilst I get ready for work in the mornings. Juggling part-time work with my caring role restricts the times that I can access wider support. But, since joining Mobilise, I’ve always had another carer to chat to when I find a moment for myself in the evenings, or an expert on hand to offer advice when I need it the most.”
Suzanne Bourne, co-founder and Head of Carer Support at Mobilise, commented: “As unpaid carers, it’s vital we get the support we need to protect our own wellbeing, and continue to look after our friends or family at the same time. But caring responsibilities don’t always start and stop in line with traditional working hours, or allow us to leave those in our care alone. This is where on-demand digital support can help.
“I’m grateful that, alongside local carers organisations like Wigan and Leigh Carers Centre, Mobilise is now able to help more carers across the North West access support whenever and wherever they need it. Our new partnership with Wigan Council, and our continued work with local authorities across Cheshire and Merseyside, will help ensure that no one has to navigate the daily realities of caring alone.”
Case study 2:
George, who cared for his mother in the North West
George Smith who cared for his mother and lives in Cheshire, said: “I moved in with my mum in 2023 after a nasty fall led to mobility issues and various complications that left her unable to look after herself.
“You don’t expect to become a carer. I certainly wasn’t prepared for how it would impact me physically and mentally. There were many times when I felt lonely, guilty, and like I was losing my sense of identity. Talking to other carers helped me realise it was okay to take time out for myself. The Mobilise community also helped me realise I wasn’t alone. They opened my eyes to how many of us look after loved ones who we might once have relied on ourselves, and how many of us will come to rely on those around us in future.
“I cared for my mum up until she passed away earlier this year. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Councillor Keith Cunliffe, Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care at Wigan Council, said: “We are proud to be working with Mobilise alongside Wigan and Leigh Carers Centre in this innovative partnership to better support unpaid carers across Wigan Borough. Unpaid carers are vital to our communities and it is so important that we continue to find new and effective ways to support them. By embracing digital innovation, we are ensuring carers can access the help they need, when they need it and in a way that fits around their busy lives.”
Christine Aspin, Chief Officer at Wigan and Leigh Carers Centre, said: “As Chief Officer at Wigan and Leigh Carers Centre, I am announcing our partnership with Mobilise. This collaboration alongside our ongoing work with Wigan Council will enable better support for unpaid carers in the Wigan Borough. By utilising innovation and technology, we aim to address carers’ needs effectively, providing essential resources, support, and assistance at a time and convenience suitable for the carers.
“This partnership emphasises the importance of collective efforts in fostering positive community engagement and improving wellbeing. We aim to offer support beyond conventional hours, ensuring targeted assistance for working carers and those who cannot access daytime services. Caring does not fit a 9-5 model, so support will be available to carers as and when needed. Our goal is to ensure that every carer in our community has access to the help they need, precisely when they need it most.”
The NHS efficiency dilemma: Is AI really the answer?
By Peter Corpe
Despite the major digital transformation efforts ongoing across the NHS, money alone will not solve the challenges the health service faces. Neither will simply bolting AI solutions onto outdated processes, writes Peter Corpe, Industry Leader, UK Public Sector at Appian.
Despite the Government’s commitment to ‘bring the NHS into the digital age’ in its AI Opportunities Action Plan, healthcare organisations overwhelmingly still rely on legacy systems that aren’t fit for purpose. The recent State of Digital Government Review from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) highlighted, the technology resource gaps that continue to derail work, waste time and delay essential services.
This is not just an inconvenience – it’s a growing crisis. A recent UK Public Sector Efficiency Survey revealed that NHS employees lose an average of five hours per week to clunky, inefficient systems. That adds up to a staggering 7.5 million hours of wasted work every single week. These valuable hours could be reinvested in treating patients, improving safety, and providing a better service. By addressing these systemic inefficiencies, we can improve healthcare services and enhance patient outcomes.
The UK Government announced the much needed £3.25bn Transformation Fund to boost public service efficiency in its latest Spring statement. It’s poised to drive productivity in public services, including the NHS, at a time when efficiency is under immense scrutiny. Backing a range of initiatives, the fund will include the introduction of AI tools to revolutionise front line service delivery.
But if we are serious about modernising the NHS, money alone will not solve the problem – we need targeted, measured reform. AI and automation are rightly gaining momentum in the sector. However, AI is not a magic solution on its own. Its effectiveness depends on the quality of the data it receives, and how well and quickly we act on insights. If we aren’t prepared to act on its findings quickly, we create bottlenecks instead of breakthroughs. Without the right groundwork, AI risks producing noise instead of value. AI must be embedded into well-designed processes to ensure it delivers real economic benefits.
I am often asked what are the biggest technology challenges in healthcare today, and what are the opportunities and barriers for the sector to use AI effectively. My response typically focuses on the following areas:
Manual services and outdated processes
Despite ongoing digital transformation efforts, most departments still rely on manual processes. The DSIT report reveals that 45 per cent of NHS services lack a fully digital pathway, with very few eliminating manual processing entirely.
The impact of outdated processes is felt directly by patients and healthcare workers alike. When services remain paper-based or rely on fragmented systems, productivity suffers, and resources are stretched thin. The functioning of these fragmented systems relies on ‘human glue’ – workers manually bridging siloes of data and process, which prevents recognition of the core deficiencies.
Streamlining these processes through digital transformation is not just a matter of convenience. It’s essential for improving efficiency, reducing administrative burdens, and ultimately enhancing service delivery for the public.
Process modernisation and automation is the most powerful lever available to drive service reform for such tasks. A process orchestration solution can automate time-consuming tasks such as data entry, appointment scheduling, progress tracking, compliance, and reporting. Automating these actions would enable a shift towards time spent on value-driven activities that can improve both internal efficiency and service delivery.
Fragmented and underused data
When data is scattered across multiple outdated legacy systems, information access and related processes slow down for everyone. This impacts productivity and the ability to resolve case work at speed. This lack of data integration also limits the potential of AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics. These data-driven technologies can only work with seamless access to high-quality data, to drive innovation and improve decision-making.
For the NHS to be truly AI-ready, the data must be in order. Solving this starts with adopting a platform that connects data and processes woven into a single framework. A data fabric, for example, creates a virtualised layer that links data across systems without needing to migrate it.
With advanced data management, organisations can train, refine, and deploy AI models more effectively, transforming vast amounts of information into valuable insights. High-quality data is the fuel AI needs to enhance decision-making and drive efficiency. Without it, the potential of a modern digital NHS will remain out of reach.
The future of AI-driven processes in the NHS
Optimism about AI is growing within the healthcare sector. 64 per cent of NHS workers have some or high confidence in AI’s potential to improve their organisation’s efficiency.
The key to unlocking AI’s full potential is embedding it within existing processes. Process is where actions happen. It’s where healthcare professionals make decisions, allocate budget and resources, serve patients, and move things forward. When AI operates within processes, it gains purpose, governance, and accountability – all vital to delivering value from AI.
While organisations are under pressure to integrate AI, its success depends on strong data infrastructures and human oversight. AI should be a partner, not a replacement, ensuring efficiency and innovation without compromising security or accountability.
To sustain long-term growth, healthcare organisations must invest in agile platforms that adapt to rapid AI advancements with process orchestration technologies. A platform approach can streamline operations, enhance decision-making, and improve service outcomes. Embracing these tools isn’t just about modernisation, it’s essential for efficiency, stability, and better healthcare service delivery.
Now is the time for the NHS to seize the opportunity. Every part of our health service runs on processes – from patient referrals to hospital workflows. When we improve these processes with automation technologies like AI and process orchestration, we create better working environments for our healthcare workers, improving service delivery for our NHS, for the betterment of patients.
NHS Surrey Heartlands partners with Community AI to deliver socially-driven investment in local priorities
By Integrated Care Journal
The partnership leverages a data-led model, harnessing local insights to support initiatives aligning with local priorities and needs.
NHS Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board (ICB) has entered into a strategic collaboration with technology platform Community AI, to harness voluntary supplier investment in support of community wellbeing initiatives across Surrey.
At the heart of the partnership is Community AI’s COMMUNITY VALUE™ framework, a data-led model that enables public bodies to align supplier contributions with the most pressing local needs. The framework draws on verified local data to identify where resources can have the greatest impact, directing support to initiatives that reflect the priorities of residents and service users.
The approach enables NHS Surrey Heartlands to secure additional, no-cost investment into its communities – supporting health and wellbeing outcomes without placing additional strain on public finances.
“This collaboration with Community AI is a significant step in how we think about procurement as a driver of better health and wellbeing for our communities,” said Jack Wagstaff, Executive Director of Strategic Commissioning at NHS Surrey Heartlands. “By using verified data to guide investment where it’s needed most, we’re ensuring that every pound of supplier engagement delivers measurable social value. This is about smart, inclusive innovation—and doing more for the people we serve.”
The COMMUNITY VALUE™ framework bridges public need and private sector capability through a transparent and equitable model of voluntary engagement. Community AI brings together smart technology, procurement expertise, and marketing insight to direct supplier contributions to projects that deliver tangible outcomes for communities.
Paul Polizzotto, Founder and CEO of Community AI, added: “We are honoured to work with NHS Surrey Heartlands to help bring new, voluntary investment into the community in a way that is transparent, equitable, and impactful. Our COMMUNITY VALUE™ framework helps bridge the gap between private sector capabilities and public sector needs—delivering verified outcomes at no cost to taxpayers.”
Beyond Surrey, Community AI is also working with Birmingham City Council and the Tees Valley region on similar programmes, signalling a growing appetite among local authorities for data-driven and socially responsible procurement models.
The partnership comes as part of Surrey Heartlands ICB’s drive to explore innovative, value-based approaches that enhance community wellbeing, strengthen local partnerships, and improve long-term outcomes without additional financial burden on the public purse.
The integration of AI into healthcare systems around the world represents one of the most significant technological shifts of our time. However, realising this potential while safeguarding against risks requires urgent and thoughtful government action, writes Clive Hudson.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming healthcare systems around the world, offering unprecedented opportunities to improve patient outcomes, increase efficiency and reduce costs. However, as an innovator with over 40 years of experience in the field of AI, I believe we are at a critical juncture where governments globally must take decisive action to harness AI’s potential while mitigating its risks.
The current state of AI in healthcare is one of both promise and peril. While we’re seeing exciting applications emerge, from AI-assisted diagnostics to personalised treatment plans, there are also serious concerns around data privacy, algorithmic bias and the potential displacement of human healthcare workers. Governments worldwide, including the new UK administration, have a crucial opportunity and indeed a clear responsibility, to shape the future of AI in healthcare through thoughtful regulation and strategic investment.
The transformative potential of AI in healthcare
AI is already demonstrating its ability to revolutionise healthcare delivery. Machine learning algorithms are enhancing the accuracy of medical imaging analysis, natural language processing is streamlining clinical documentation and predictive analytics are helping identify at-risk patients before their conditions worsen. These applications are just the tip of the iceberg.
However, to fully realise AI’s potential, we need a robust regulatory framework that promotes innovation while protecting patients. A gold standard for global AI regulation in healthcare should prioritise:
Patient safety and privacy
Algorithmic transparency and accountability
Equitable access to AI-powered healthcare solutions
Interoperability and data sharing standards
Continuous monitoring and evaluation of AI systems
Such a framework would provide clarity for developers, build trust among healthcare providers and patients and create a level playing field for international collaboration.
The need for dynamic regulatory frameworks
Current regulatory approaches are woefully inadequate for the rapidly evolving landscape of AI. Traditional regulatory bodies move too slowly and often lack the technical expertise to effectively oversee AI technologies. We need a new paradigm.
I propose that governments need to create specialised AI regulatory authorities with a mandate to develop and enforce dynamic regulations. This authority would be empowered to adapt rules in real-time as technologies evolve, guided by core principles of:
Biodiversity
Ensuring AI systems support, rather than threaten, the rich diversity of life on our planet.
Sustainability
Promoting AI applications that contribute to long-term environmental and social well-being.
Transparency
Requiring clear explanations of how AI systems make decisions in healthcare contexts and establishing clear lines of responsibility for AI-driven outcomes.
Any nation’s regulatory body must be staffed by interdisciplinary experts who understand both the technical intricacies of AI and its broader societal implications. It should use AI technologies itself to stay ahead of the curve and offer proactive guidance to the healthcare sector.
Economic impact and strategic investment
The economic potential of AI in healthcare is staggering. By automating routine tasks, optimising resource allocation and enabling more personalised interventions, AI could dramatically reduce healthcare costs while improving outcomes.
However, realising these benefits requires strategic government investment and support. Governments should take a multifaceted approach, funding AI research and development in priority healthcare areas, incentivising AI adoption among healthcare providers, investing in robust data infrastructure and interoperability standards, and supporting AI startups and small businesses in the healthcare sector. These initiatives would create a fertile ecosystem for innovation, accelerating the development and implementation of AI solutions that can transform healthcare delivery and outcomes.
While pursuing these economic benefits, policymakers must remain vigilant about potential negative consequences, such as job displacement or the exacerbation of health inequalities. Government policies should aim to distribute the gains from AI equitably and provide support for workers transitioning to new roles.
Challenges and ethical considerations
As we push the boundaries of AI in healthcare, there are also significant ethical challenges to confront. Data security and patient privacy are paramount concerns. Current day AI systems require vast amounts of sensitive health data to function effectively, creating potential vulnerabilities to breaches or misuse.
Moreover, we must be vigilant about biases in AI systems. If trained on non-representative datasets, AI could perpetuate or even amplify existing health disparities. Governments must mandate rigorous testing and auditing of AI systems to detect and mitigate such biases.
Another crucial consideration is maintaining the human element in healthcare. AI should augment, not replace, human expertise and compassion. Policies should encourage the development of AI systems that enhance the capabilities of healthcare professionals rather than seeking to automate them out of the equation.
The concept of ‘super intelligence’ in healthcare AI
Looking to the future, we must grapple with the concept of ‘superintelligence’ in healthcare AI. By this, I mean AI systems that surpass human capabilities not just in narrow tasks, but in reasoning, problem-solving and even creativity across a wide range of knowledge domains.
Developing such systems requires a cross-disciplinary approach, drawing insights from fields as diverse as neuroscience, psychology, ethics and computer science. It is not simply a matter of scaling up existing AI models, but of fundamentally rethinking how we approach machine intelligence.
It is possible to draw important lessons from past technological advancements. The rapid rise of social media, for instance, brought unforeseen consequences for mental health and social cohesion. With healthcare AI, the stakes are even higher, making it essential to anticipate potential negative outcomes and build safeguards from the ground up.
A key aspect of superintelligent AI in healthcare would be its ability to reason ethically and align its goals with human values. This is no small feat and will require sustained collaboration between AI researchers, ethicists and healthcare professionals.
Recommendations for policymakers
First and foremost, governments should establish a specialised AI regulatory body. This agency should have the authority and expertise to develop and enforce dynamic regulations that keep pace with technological advancements. Such a body would be crucial in navigating the complex and rapidly evolving landscape of AI in healthcare.
Investing in AI education and workforce development is equally important. We need to build a workforce capable of developing, implementing and overseeing AI systems in healthcare. This requires significant investment in STEM education and interdisciplinary programs combining technical skills with healthcare knowledge. By fostering this talent pipeline, we can ensure that we have the human capital necessary to drive innovation and responsible AI adoption in healthcare.
Governments should also promote collaboration between academia, industry and government. Innovation thrives when ideas flow freely between sectors. Creating frameworks for data sharing, joint research initiatives and knowledge transfer between universities, private companies and public health institutions can accelerate progress and ensure that AI developments are aligned with real-world healthcare needs.
Embedding ethical guidelines in AI development is crucial. Ethics should not be an afterthought but an integral part of the process. Governments should mandate the integration of ethical considerations at every stage of the AI lifecycle, from design to deployment and ongoing monitoring. This approach will help build trust in AI systems and ensure they align with societal values.
Given the global nature of AI development in healthcare, supporting international cooperation is vital. Governments should work together to establish common standards, share best practices and address cross-border challenges such as data governance and algorithmic accountability. This collaborative approach can help create a more cohesive and effective global AI ecosystem in healthcare.
Prioritising explainable AI is another key recommendation. In healthcare, it is crucial that AI systems can explain their decision-making processes. Policymakers should incentivise the development of interpretable AI models and require transparency in high-stakes healthcare applications. This transparency will be essential for building trust among healthcare providers and patients.
Finally, governments should invest in robust testing and validation frameworks. Before AI systems are deployed in healthcare settings, they must undergo rigorous testing to ensure safety, efficacy and fairness. Establishing clear guidelines and supporting the development of standardised evaluation protocols will be crucial in ensuring that AI systems meet the high standards required in healthcare contexts.
Time for action
The integration of AI into healthcare systems around the world represents one of the most significant technological shifts of our time. Its potential to improve patient outcomes, increase efficiency and drive medical breakthroughs is immense. However, realising this potential while safeguarding against risks requires urgent and thoughtful government action.
We stand at a crossroads. With the right policies and investments, we can shape an AI-enabled healthcare future that is more effective, equitable and humane. But if we fail to act, we risk a future where AI exacerbates health inequalities, compromises patient privacy or makes critical decisions without adequate oversight.
My vision is for a healthcare ecosystem where AI enhances and extends human capabilities, where patients benefit from personalised and proactive care and where the fruits of AI innovation are shared equitably across society. Achieving this vision requires more than just technological prowess – it demands political will, ethical foresight and global cooperation.
The time for governments to act is now. By establishing dynamic regulatory frameworks, investing strategically in AI development and education and prioritising ethical considerations, we can ensure that AI becomes a powerful force for good in global healthcare. The decisions we make today will shape the health outcomes of generations to come. Let us seize this opportunity to create a healthier, more equitable world for all.
