Civil Service: Artificial Intelligence Productivity Gains

Lord Markham Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I agree, and I have alluded to that in previous answers. The challenge is a cultural one around workflow. I go back to the MIT report, which shows that, especially in big companies, there are high levels of adoption and low levels of disruption. The challenge is to get high levels of adoption with appropriate disruption taking place. That is a cultural challenge. That is why not only training but leadership are needed to make this happen.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, we are all aware that probably the biggest challenge in government is productivity in the NHS, which has declined by about 20% since the pandemic. However, in none of the conversations and negotiations on the resident doctors’ dispute have we heard about productivity being a key part of the solution. Can the Minister reassure us that we really are trying to drive productivity gains, so that any wage increases can be fully justified?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. I can certainly reassure him that AI in the health service is going to be one of the big areas where changes occur. It is going to introduce changes in a number of ways. The first is in workflow organisation, which is key for the NHS to look at. The second is in new treatments and ways of diagnosing. It is already being used to reduce the need for humans to look at X-rays and so on to get them through more quickly, so there is an efficiency gain. There are also new approaches, such as using AI to make sure that remote monitoring—for example, taking photographs of suspicious moles and seeing if they are malignant—is potentially massively enhanced. There are many opportunities for productivity improvement through AI.