Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what purposes the NHS Business Services Authority has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the Government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) has identified opportunities for the utilisation of AI tools and services and has categorised those into three areas of opportunity: personal efficiency and productivity; applying Generative AI (GenAI) at a professional level; and GenAI at an organisational or service level.

The NHSBSA has therefore used AI in a number of proof of concept pieces over the past 12 months to test its fit for purposefulness in these environments. These include drafting meeting minutes, customer insights and data extraction, job specifications, supporting coding, and chatbot development.

The NHSBSA is in enabling discussions with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to work in step with other departmental Arm’s Length Bodies in GenAI development in health and social care, and can draw on a range of resources, published on the GOV.UK website, to inform AI usage.