Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to monitor quality control of new AI products used in the NHS to ensure (a) value for money and (b) return on investment.

Against a backdrop of increasing demand for National Health Services and significant workforce pressures, artificial intelligence (AI) presents significant opportunities for improving the delivery of care and outcomes for patients, while also saving money and staff time.

Continuous monitoring after deployment is essential to ensure rigorous quality control of new AI products, value for money, and return on investment. The Department is working closely with regulators to identify new measures for providing assurance.

The Department has launched regulatory projects, such as the AI Airlock, to support this aim. AI Airlock is a Medicines and Healthcare products Regulation Agency-led initiative designed to create a controlled testing environment where developers can rigorously validate AI tools in real-world clinical settings before full-scale deployment, ensuring they meet NHS standards for safety, efficacy, value for money, and integration into existing healthcare workflows. This initiative provides valuable feedback for developers to refine their products to ensure a return on investment, when eventually deployed into the NHS.

In addition, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), sponsored by the Department, evaluates new health technologies for NHS use, considering clinical effectiveness and value for money. As part of this, the NICE conducts Early Value Assessments (EVA) for developers, reviewing their AI tools, including their value for money and return on investment, before they are deployed. For the NHS, EVAs aim to give the NHS a clear signal about which innovations work, offer good value for money, and meet system need.

In the United Kingdom, the vast majority of AI products being used in health and care are regulated as medical technologies. This means they are subject to stringent requirements, primarily set out in The Medical Devices Regulations 2002, and robust monitoring by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulation Agency.

The responsibility for spending decisions rests with individual NHS trusts. As public bodies, NHS trusts should maintain the highest standards of rigour, value for money, and propriety in the use of public funding. All spending must contribute to organisational objectives and support the delivery of high-quality patient care.