Government puts £140m NHS AI award in play to speed up advanced tech usage
Summary
Social care secretary Matt Hancock has launched a competition to speed up artificial intelligence (AI) usage in the NHS. According to a spokesperson at the Department of Health and Social Care, the £140m AI Award fund will be open to multiple companies, and will be allocated based on the applications received. The statement highlighted the existing use of AI in the health service to predict cancer survival rates and cut the number of missed appointments. “In the East Midlands, for example, artificial intelligence is improving the speed and dissemination of x-rays and scans for five million people, helping predict breast cancer sooner. The departmental statement added, as a caveat, that “any innovator working with the AI lab will need to comply with the laws and regulations that protect health and care data, as well as the NHS’s Code of Conduct for data-driven technologies.