Asked by: Stephen Metcalfe (Conservative - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to promote the use of (a) the quality and outcomes framework and (b) other incentive models to ensure the adequate uptake of proven AI health technologies at a local level.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The National Health Service Artificial Intelligence (AI) Laboratory was set up in 2019 to support the safe and ethical development and deployment of AI across health and care. The AI in Health and Care Awards will channel £140 million of funding to AI innovation.
The NHS AI Laboratory, is also developing the evidence base for technologies and providing guidance on best practice.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to ensure equitable patient access to proven remote diagnostics to support home testing.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Department and the National Health Service are prioritising the improvement of connectivity and digitisation across all aspects of diagnostics in order to drive efficiency, deliver seamless care across traditional boundaries and facilitate remote reporting.
The first four phases of the Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care award included innovations in remote diagnostics, including the Neuronostics Limited smartphone-based app which can receive electroencephalogram recordings from wireless headsets to assist with assessing epilepsy treatment; Senti Tech Limited’s project enabling remote chest examination for respiratory patients through sensors embedded into a jacket; and Healthy.io UK Limited’s smartphone albuminuria self-test, which uses a home test kit and a mobile app to allow patients to self-test at home with clinical grade results.
NHSX is supporting the COVID Oximetry @home services which remotely monitor the oxygen saturation levels of patients with COVID-19 symptoms. This offers both technology-enabled and standard services with paper diary and telephone check-in for those without smartphones. In some areas, devices are provided for people to use in their own homes. NHSX are also supporting the scaling of remote monitoring approaches across the seven regions in England. This includes a focus on vulnerable groups such as those living in care homes.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to create a single, online regulatory advice and information platform for the healthcare artificial intelligence sector.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Smarter regulation can help make the United Kingdom the best place in the world to develop artificial intelligence (AI) in health. NHSX convened the Chief Executive Officers and heads of all the health regulators on 28 January 2020, where they committed to a more joined up approach to regulation, in which innovators do not have to navigate between multiple bodies and sets of rules. In particular, there was agreement on the need for a single platform, bringing all the regulatory strands together to create a single point of contact, advice and engagement. NHSX is now working with regulators to simplify access to support within the regulatory environment for anyone wishing to develop the pipeline of potential AI which could be scaled into the National Health Service. This will be an area of continuing focus for the AI Programme being delivered by NHSX.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential effect of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm on the dissemination of misinformation on public health.
Answered by Matt Warman
The government recognises the importance of algorithms as part of the responsible deployment of digital technologies. To this end, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) established the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) in November 2018. The Centre provides government with independent, expert advice on measures needed to enable/ensure safe, ethical and innovative uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data-driven technologies. The Centre’s 2019/20 Work Programme is focused on delivering two major reviews, including one on online targeting. The Targeting Review is investigating how data is used to shape people’s online environments via the personalisation and targeting of messages, content and services online. Interim findings were published in July 2019, alongside a literature review, and the Centre will publish its final recommendations this December.
In addition, the Online Harms White Paper sets out our plans for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. This will make companies more responsible for their users’ safety online. The government expects companies to proactively engage in looking at tech solutions, including ensuring their algorithms do not inadvertently cause harm. We are working closely with social media platforms to encourage and promote responsible behaviour ahead of the implementation of the online harms regulatory framework.
Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions officials in his Department have had with representatives of (a) businesses and (b) academia on the introduction of artificial intelligence for the provision of clinical services.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Officials started formally engaging with business and academia on the topic of the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the provision of clinical services in January 2018 when the programme of work for developing the NHS Code of Conduct for Data-Driven Health and Care Technologies began. Since then there has been an open dialogue between the Department, NHSX, academia and both large and small businesses to support the National Health Service to become the world leader in AI for healthcare.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he plans to take to ensure that the Government's target of increasing research and development funding to 2.4 per cent of GDP benefits the areas with the poorest health outcomes, particularly parts of the north of England.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The 2.4% R&D Roadmap will set overall direction for how we can achieve the 2.4% R&D ambition by 2027, and 3% in the longer term, through the use of strategic public funding to leverage private R&D investment.
It aims to transform R&D intensity across all sectors of the economy, supporting the development of new technologies, industries, and products that bring growth, good jobs across the UK, and social improvements for all.
The 2.4% R&D Roadmap will bring together Government, academia, and industry to collaboratively focus their efforts on increasing R&D investment. In the area of health, this includes the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS R&D activity, and work with industry in taking forward the Life Sciences Sector Deal. The 2.4% R&D Roadmap will also align closely with the Industrial Strategy’s Grand Challenges. This includes the Ageing Society Grand Challenge which will create new demands for technologies, products and services for an ageing population, and the AI and Data Grand Challenge which will use data, artificial intelligence, and innovation to transform the prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and dementia by 2030.
In order to achieve the 2.4% R&D target, we need to accelerate the growth and build on R&D strengths across the UK. The Government has put in place a number of initiatives to support every part of the UK to identify and leverage their R&D strengths, from Science and Innovation Audits to the Strength in Places Fund. The Strength in Places Fund (SIPF) is investing £237m up to 2021-22 in growing new and existing centres of excellence for research and innovation across the UK.
We are working with Local Economic Partnerships as they develop Local Industrial Strategies to identify science and innovation strengths and the action needed to unlock R&D growth in places across the country.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to invest in the development and use of artificial intelligence in the UK healthcare sector.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Department of Health and Social Care is leading on the Prime Minister’s Mission to “Use data, Artificial Intelligence and innovation to transform the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases by 2030.” We hope that as we work towards this overall goal, we can ensure that: patients experience better care, clinicians deliver better care, commissioners are better able to commission data-driven technologies and the United Kingdom is a great place to do business in artificial intelligence (AI) for health and care.
We are working in partnership with organisations across the National Health Service, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Office for Life Sciences, Office for Artificial Intelligence and Better Regulation Executive to engage with businesses in the sector so that we benefit from the potential for AI to improve care, deliver better outcomes, contribute to efficiency in the health and care system and contribute to the wider economy. In September 2018, we published the Code of Conduct for Data-Driven Health and Care Technology, which clearly sets out the behaviours we expect from those developing AI and related technologies. The Code was updated in February 2019 based on feedback, including from industry partners, and we are working with them to develop case studies showing good practice in complying with the Code. We are also developing tools to help businesses comply with the Code of Conduct.
The Office for Artificial Intelligence and UK Research and Innovation have announced centres for doctoral training in AI-enabled healthcare across the UK.
The Office for Life Sciences has established five Centres of Excellence in digital pathology and radiology with AI, supported by an initial £50 million Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund investment and a further £50 million of scale up funding from the Department of Health and Social Care. The centres are working with NHS and industry partners, including innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, to develop pioneering AI-enabled pathology and radiology tools.
In addition we are also working closely with Health Education England as they follow through on the recommendations made by the Topol Review Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future.
In March 2019, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published its Evidence Standards Framework for Digital Health Technologies, outlining the evidence required by businesses to demonstrate the effectiveness and economic impact of digital health technologies.
Taken together these steps, and others, will ensure there is a clear framework for the development and use of AI in the healthcare sector including the skills, a clear path to market, and a rigorous process for ensuring the safety, efficacy and ethics of the tools developed, deployed and used.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have plans to invest in projects to improve the development of artificial intelligence in the UK.
Answered by Lord Henley
Artificial Intelligence is one of the global trends which will transform our future, changing jobs and businesses across the country, and we want people to be able to capitalise on these opportunities.
The AI Sector Deal, announced in April 2018, outlines up to £0.95bn package of support for the sector, which includes Government, industry and academic contributions.
Since the Sector Deal launch the Government has invested in a number of areas. For example:
Our ambition in AI and data will not stop at the Sector Deal. This is only the start of the UK’s plans to be recognised as a place where ingenuity and entrepreneurship can flourish, where technology follows the highest ethical standards and where the transformative potential of this technology is spread across the UK economy more widely and for the betterment of society.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department has issued to businesses in the healthcare sector on preparing their workforce for the effect of the introduction of Artificial Intelligence.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Department is leading on the Prime Minister’s Mission to ‘Use data, Artificial Intelligence and innovation to transform the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases by 2030.’ We hope that as we work towards this overall goal, we can ensure that patients experience better care, clinicians deliver better care, commissioners are better able to commission data-driven technologies and the United Kingdom is a great place to do business in artificial intelligence for health and care.
We are working in partnership with organisations across the National Health Service, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Office for Life Sciences, Office for Artificial Intelligence and Better Regulation Executive to engage with businesses in the sector so that we benefit from the potential for artificial intelligence to improve care, deliver better outcomes, contribute to efficiency in the health and care system and contribute to the wider economy. In September 2018, we published the Code of Conduct for Data-Driven Health and Care Technology, which clearly sets out the behaviours we expect from those developing artificial intelligence and related technologies. The Code was updated in February 2019 based on feedback, including from industry partners, and we are working with them to develop case studies showing good practice in complying with the Code. We are also developing tools to help businesses comply the Code of Conduct.
We are also working closely with Health Education England as they follow through on the recommendations made by the Topol Review ‘Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future.’
In March 2019, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published its Evidence Standards Framework for Digital Health Technologies, outlining the evidence required by businesses to demonstrate the effectiveness and economic impact of digital health technologies.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to implement the recommendations in the report by the all-party parliamentary group on Heart and Circulatory Diseases entitled Putting patients at the heart of artificial intelligence.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
There is a cross-cutting programme of work across the health and care system, led by NHSX, which delivers on the All Party Parliamentary Group recommendations and ensure that only the best and safest Artificial Intelligence systems are used by the National Health Service. The programme will also make it easier for suppliers to develop technologies that tackle some of the biggest issues in healthcare. Officials from the Department were part of the advisory board for the report and supported the development of the recommendations.