NHS: Artificial Intelligence

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness has highlighted two of the recommendations from the report. I support the proposal for a regulatory framework; it is a piece of work that I have kicked off in the department. I cannot put a timing on that, but I understand the need to provide a safe operating environment so that people who want to get into this field, whether from NHS trusts or businesses, can do so knowing that they are operating on a legal basis. That is something that we are working on.

On digitalisation, she is quite right: the £4 billion programme known as Personalised Health and Care 2020 is trying to deliver before 2020—as the name suggests—the kind of digitalisation that will enable AI to bring those benefits across every corner of the health and care systems.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that many parts of the world envy Britain’s strengths and opportunities in AI, particularly in the health area, and that government procurement could turn this early lead into a golden opportunity for the UK?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

Yes, I absolutely agree with that. As the report highlights, we have a unique opportunity because of the nature of the way that the NHS was set up and its potential for realising a comprehensive data set of 65 million people. It is not just about those procurement rules; we have talked about having the right framework. It is about providing reassurance within the system—at a time when the public are beginning to understand just what data can do for good and for bad—that the NHS will use their data safely, securely and legally so that they can trust that it is being used for proper purposes from which they will benefit.