NHS: Amazon

(asked on 10th July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the announcement that NHS health information will be available through Amazon’s Alexa, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of Alexa for identifying health information; what safeguards for patient safety are in place to monitor the effectiveness of Alexa; whether the information provided by Alexa that originates from NHS-verified health information be clearly differentiated from information that originates from other non-verified sources; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 15th July 2019

The information provided by Amazon Alexa in response to questions asked by users is taken directly from the National Health Service website. It is an alternative mechanism for accessing professional NHS-verified health information that is already freely available on the NHS website.

The service provided by Amazon will not provide any form of diagnosis or advice. It is intended to provide NHS-verified information on the symptoms and treatments for different medical conditions using the exact wording from the NHS website.

When a response is given by Alexa to a question from a user, it will be preceded with the phrase, “according to the NHS website…”, which clearly differentiates it from any other source of information.

NHS Digital is working closely with Amazon to assess the effectiveness of the service. The algorithm used by Amazon is still learning and will be updated continuously to learn how people are asking questions about health conditions.

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