Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he his taking to use (a) data and (b) AI to improve NHS efficiency.
Data and technology is a key enabling workstream in our 10-Year Health Plan. The NHS is already using and promoting several national tools and datasets to help systems and providers identify and implement efficiency opportunities. The NHS Spend Comparison Service allows NHS procurement teams to identify savings opportunities. Model Hospital is a data-driven improvement tool that provides benchmarked insights across the quality of care, productivity, and organisational culture to identify opportunities for improvement. Model Hospital includes a section on the top ten medicines to support trust progress towards meeting national and trust-level uptake and savings targets by using less costly or biosimilar versions of these drugs.
The Federated Data Platform, being rolled-out to trusts and integrated care systems, will allow them to be much more effective in how they handle data to improve outcomes. It brings together information about staff, waiting times, equipment, and medicines, to allow for better planning of how the NHS uses its resources, including supply main management. This was piloted in trusts across England and showed that better use of data could help discharge patients quicker and make better use of operating theatres.
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has also recently announced the intention for there to be a single patient record, including primary care and hospital data, so professionals have the data to make better informed decisions, and deliver more preventative and more efficient health and care.
Through the AI in Health and Care Award, the Department has helped accelerate the testing and evaluation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to develop an evidence base to support the commissioning of technologies that are clinically and cost effective. So far, £113 million has been provided to 86 AI technologies, which are live in 99 hospitals across 40% of NHS acute trusts in England, as well as hundreds of Primary Care Networks across the United Kingdom.
AI technologies have huge potential in improving efficiency across the NHS by supporting clinicians with faster and more accurate diagnosis, enhancing clinical decision-making about treatment plans, and reducing the administrative burden faced by healthcare staff. The Department and NHS England are developing guidance for the responsible use of these tools and how they can be rolled out to make the day-to-day operations of the NHS more efficient.