Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential use of artificial intelligence technologies in providing healthcare diagnostics without the involvement of doctors.
Through the Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care Award, we have provided £113 million to test and evaluate artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in crucial areas, such as imaging and diagnostics. The Department is focusing the £21 million AI Diagnostic Fund on the deployment of technologies in key, high-demand areas such as chest X-rays and chest computed tomography scans to enable faster diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer in 12 imaging networks, which covers 67 out of a total of 137 acute and specialist trusts across all seven regions of England.
AI technologies are not designed to replace our National Health Service and care staff. Instead, they will augment human expertise by supporting healthcare staff with routine administrative tasks and clinical decision making. This will save staff time and allow them to spend more time with patients. AI diagnostic tools are to be used to support doctors, and their findings will be reviewed by clinicians before decisions are made.