National Health Service Infrastructure

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

Data on the proportion of capital equipment that is out of action or on days lost is not currently collected and the responsibility for that is with local NHS organisations, but the Government have recently supported investment in new diagnostics. As outlined in our Health Infrastructure Plan, we have invested £200 million to deliver new state-of-the-art diagnostic machines, such as MRI machines, CT scanners and breast-scanning equipment, to 78 trusts. We recognise that we need to improve the number of scanners that are younger than the “golden rule” of 10 years old.

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government scrapping car parking charges, which will support people who are caring. I also welcome the new money that will be put into the infrastructure project, which is vital, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has pointed out. Can my noble friend say, however, whether AI and new technology will be used, and whether funding will be put in place to help carers and people living in their home?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank my noble friend for her question. She is absolutely right that we want to prevent people from going into hospital in the first place. We have made a £200 million investment in the AI lab to reduce the burden on doctors in the first place and to make use of the benefits of AI in diagnostics. A number of centres up and down the country are trialling this to reduce the burden on clinicians so that they can become more human and work on their caring responsibilities. We are also trialling a dementia care test bed, so that there is support for carers and so that people with dementia can remain in their own home. This is going on in Surrey and has been hugely successful; it is a very exciting development.