Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what purposes the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

During 2024, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) identified 20 artificial intelligence (AI) use-cases for prototyping with different technologies with different AI paradigms.

The use-cases range from productivity through to decision making, across all areas of the business, including communications, customer services, and helpdesks, as well as across the regulatory activities for the whole product lifecycle, including post-market surveillance. MHRA technical specialists have collaborated closely with science, health, and regulation subject matter experts to produce the first batch of AI prototypes.

As a result of the successful outcomes in the prototyping phases, the team is now considering next steps in productionising the prototypes, whilst maintaining safety and efficacy. The work takes a risk-proportionate approach, tailored to each use-case, rather than a one size fits all risk-averse blanket approach to all scenarios.