Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure equal regional access to artificial intelligence diagnostic software for stroke patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan and the Life Sciences Sector Plan will help the National Health Service become the most artificial intelligence (AI)-ready healthcare system in the world. The Government is fully committed to the ‘scan-pilot-scale’ approach set out in the AI Opportunities Action Plan published in January 2025, so that we can ensure AI is deployed in the critical areas where the technology can support better health outcomes. The action plan is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-opportunities-action-plan/ai-opportunities-action-plan
We have made particularly significant progress on the deployment of AI within the stroke pathway. Stroke AI tools have been trialled to support doctors to interpret acute stroke brain scans and make decisions about treatment. These are now in use across 100% of stroke units in England. Early data has shown patient "door in door out" time reduction from 140 to 79 minutes and triple the chance of independent living following a stroke when Acute Stroke Centers use these AI tools.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to deploy artificial intelligence diagnostic tools to aid healthcare professionals.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Against a backdrop of increasing demand for National Health Services and significant workforce pressures, artificial intelligence (AI) presents significant opportunities for improving the delivery of care and outcomes for patients. AI tools have the potential to make healthcare more timely, effective, and accessible to the public. To make the most of these opportunities, the Prime Minister has accepted all 50 recommendations of Matt Clifford's AI Opportunities Action Plan.
Through our 10-Year Health Plan for England, we have set out how we will harness the advantages of AI, including in diagnostics to propel the NHS into a position of global leadership.
Through the AI in Health and Care Award, £113 million, allocated in multiple spending rounds from 2020 to 2023, has been provided to test and evaluate AI technologies in crucial areas, such as imaging and diagnostics. This funding is helping us to generate the evidence needed to deploy effective AI tools across the NHS and improve the lives and health outcomes of our population.
In addition to the Health and Care Award funding, the Government also has a £21 million AI Diagnostic Fund, focussed on the deployment of technologies in key, high-demand areas such as chest X-rays and chest computed tomography scans, to enable faster diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer in 12 imaging networks, which covers 67 out of a total of 137 acute and specialist trusts across all seven regions of England.
NHS England is working to ensure magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acceleration software is being rolled out across MRI scanners, which includes upgrading old scanners which are unable to utilise this new software and technology. This software can deliver a 30% reduction in some scan times, increasing throughput, environmental efficiency, and service resilience simultaneously.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to provide mental health support to patients with prostate cancer during and after treatment.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country. The Government will transform mental health services into 24 hour a day, seven day a week neighbourhood mental health centres, improving assertive outreach and giving patients better access to support directly through the NHS App, including self-referral for talking therapies.
The forthcoming National Cancer Plan for England will seek to improve both the physical and mental health aspects of cancer care. The plan will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and earlier diagnosis to accessing treatment and ongoing care, and will apply to all cancer types, including prostate cancer.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential use of the supercomputer Isambard-AI in processing the medical scans of cancer patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan and the Life Sciences Sector Plan will help the National Health Service become the most artificial intelligence (AI) ready healthcare system in the world. While no assessment has yet been made of the potential use of Isambard-AI in processing the medical scans of cancer patients, the Government is fully committed to the ‘scan-pilot-scale’ approach set out in Matt Clifford’s AI Opportunities Action Plan published earlier this year, so that we can ensure AI is deployed in the critical areas where the technology can support better health outcomes.
The Government has already had success with the ‘scan-pilot-scale’ approach as part of the £113 million AI awards, which provided funding for a number of technologies that support cancer diagnosis. In addition, the £21 million AI diagnostic fund is supporting the deployment of technologies in key, high-demand areas such as chest x-ray and chest computed tomography scans to enable faster diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer in over half of acute trusts in England. Funding is being provided to 12 imaging networks, which cover 67 out of a total of 137 acute and specialist trusts across all seven regions of England.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop a campaign to encourage high-risk groups of men to be checked for prostate cancer.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department remains committed to supporting the National Health Service in raising the awareness of cancer symptoms and in diagnosing all cancer types earlier, including prostate cancer.
In January 2025, NHS England re-launched the Abdominal and urological symptoms of cancer phase of its Help Us Help You campaigns, to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms, including for prostate cancer, and to remove barriers to people visiting their general practitioner.
This year, the Department will publish a National Cancer Plan, which will include further details on how outcomes and experiences of cancer patients in England can be improved. It will cover earlier diagnosis and ensure that cancer patients have access to the latest treatments and technology and will ultimately bring this country’s cancer survival rates back up to the standards of the best in the world.
The Government is investing £16 million towards the Prostate Cancer UK-led TRANSFORM screening trial, which is seeking to find ways to detect prostate cancer in men as early as possible. The TRANSFORM trial will aim to address health inequalities by ensuring that one in ten of the participants are black men.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of current eligibility guidelines of BRCA1 gene testing, and how testing allows early detection of heightened risk of prostate cancer.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Genomic testing in the National Health Service in England is delivered in line with the National Genomic Test Directory. The test directory outlines eligibility criteria and testing methods for over 200 cancer indications, including BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing for prostate cancer, and is regularly reviewed through an evidence-based process to ensure testing remains clinically relevant and cost-effective. Testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 can help identify individuals at increased genetic risk of developing prostate cancer, enabling earlier and more targeted monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment. This supports timely clinical interventions and can improve outcomes for patients and their families. NHS England has also funded transformation projects through NHS Genomic Medicine Service (GMS) alliances, including one led by the East GMS Alliance focused on improving the prostate cancer pathway. This project focused on the genetic testing of prostate tumour tissue samples to better understand the causes and inform treatment decisions, while also identifying whether relatives may be at increased risk of cancers such as breast, ovarian, or prostate cancer.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how artificial intelligence could be used in the screening of prostate cancer; and whether they are currently investing in this technology.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is testing artificial intelligence (AI) in the areas that cause the most harm to health and to our economy, including prostate cancer. Through the £113 million AI in Health and Care Award, 86 technologies have been supported, including three projects specifically focused on prostate cancer. One of these is the Paige prostate cancer detection tool, developed by the University of Oxford.
To help provide timely personalised treatment plans, only those patients most at risk of prostate cancer undergo an invasive biopsy, and NHS England has implemented a best-practice timed pathway for prostate cancer, which begins with a multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging scan.
In summer 2024, NHS England conducted a baseline assessment of AI auto-contouring systems, which showed that 39 National Health Service trusts had implemented some form of AI for radiotherapy treatment planning. The Department is aware of very early-stage trials into AI prostate cancer detection, and we look forward to seeing the results. For national screening programmes, the Government follows the advice of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). The UK NSC currently does not recommend screening for prostate cancer as the current best test is not accurate enough for use in asymptomatic men.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are taking steps to use artificial intelligence in prostate cancer testing for more accurate diagnosis, and what assessment they have made of the case for establishing a national screening service for prostate cancer.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is testing artificial intelligence (AI) in the areas that cause the most harm to health and to our economy, including prostate cancer. Through the £113 million AI in Health and Care Award, 86 technologies have been supported, including three projects specifically focused on prostate cancer. One of these is the Paige prostate cancer detection tool, developed by the University of Oxford.
To help provide timely personalised treatment plans, only those patients most at risk of prostate cancer undergo an invasive biopsy, and NHS England has implemented a best-practice timed pathway for prostate cancer, which begins with a multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging scan.
In summer 2024, NHS England conducted a baseline assessment of AI auto-contouring systems, which showed that 39 National Health Service trusts had implemented some form of AI for radiotherapy treatment planning. The Department is aware of very early-stage trials into AI prostate cancer detection, and we look forward to seeing the results. For national screening programmes, the Government follows the advice of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). The UK NSC currently does not recommend screening for prostate cancer as the current best test is not accurate enough for use in asymptomatic men.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how artificial intelligence can be used to analyse biopsy samples in patients with prostate cancer to help provide personalised treatment plans.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is testing artificial intelligence (AI) in the areas that cause the most harm to health and to our economy, including prostate cancer. Through the £113 million AI in Health and Care Award, 86 technologies have been supported, including three projects specifically focused on prostate cancer. One of these is the Paige prostate cancer detection tool, developed by the University of Oxford.
To help provide timely personalised treatment plans, only those patients most at risk of prostate cancer undergo an invasive biopsy, and NHS England has implemented a best-practice timed pathway for prostate cancer, which begins with a multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging scan.
In summer 2024, NHS England conducted a baseline assessment of AI auto-contouring systems, which showed that 39 National Health Service trusts had implemented some form of AI for radiotherapy treatment planning. The Department is aware of very early-stage trials into AI prostate cancer detection, and we look forward to seeing the results. For national screening programmes, the Government follows the advice of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). The UK NSC currently does not recommend screening for prostate cancer as the current best test is not accurate enough for use in asymptomatic men.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage the use of surgical robotics in prostate cancer treatment.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England currently commissions robotic assisted surgical procedures for the treatment of prostate cancer for patients who meet the necessary criteria.
In June 2025, NHS England announced a commitment to expand robotic-assisted surgery over the next 10 years for a range of procedures. Following the announcement, NHS England published guidance for National Health Service systems to implement robotic-assisted surgery in the NHS.
Furthermore, on 3 July 2025, the Department published the 10-Year Health Plan which outlines our commitment to expand surgical robot adoption in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.