Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with (a) Royal College of Nursing and (b) other relevant bodies on the use of artificial intelligence technology to identify tumours and speed up the treatment of cancer.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has an important role to play in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. We supported the AI in Health and Care Award, which is part of the NHS AI Lab and run by the Accelerated Access Collaborative in partnership with NHSX and the National Institute for Health Research. This resulted in a collaboration with a number of partners, including the Royal Colleges, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, Public Health England, medical research charities and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the selection and identification of AI technologies for use in the treatment of cancer. Cancer solutions are one of the priority clinical areas for the second round of the AI in Health and Care Award, with winners to be announced in May 2021.