The NHS must get its data strategy right before moving on to AI

Health and data experts at the Westminster Health Forum said that the NHS still has much to do around its approach to data

Artificial intelligence has the potential to be a massive boon for the NHS when applied to big data, but there is much to do around data hygiene and trust first, said speakers at the Westminster Health Forum, which was held in London last week.

Labour MP Chris Ruane, the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for data analytics, chaired the session. He said that data analytics have "massive potential...but there is an issue of public and professional trust. If you are going to take out 40 per cent of the jobs in the National Health Service, you need to explain that the new technology will bring along other jobs - better jobs."

Simon Eccles of the Department of Health and Social Care and St Thomas' hospital said that "the time is right" for applying digital technology in the NHS, and criticised the government's National Programme for IT in the NHS, which was launched in 2000, for delaying its introduction.

"We in the NHS are not terribly digital. We are doing things the way we have always done them. The model of care is the 1948 model: the GP in the surgery, the community practice and district nurse in the car, the hospital with consultants and junior doctors in white coats. My great aunt, who trained before the NHS, would recognise every element of our organisational structure.

"We need to digitise the NHS alongside changing our care processes. We have been reasonably good at doing each, but not joining them together."

The NHS still suffers from a very siloed infrastructure and huge amounts of unstructured, paper data. Daniel Ray, director of data at NHS Digital, said that his organisation is building a new platform to capture data, with a goal of the "seamless flow of data around the NHS."

NHS Digital has published an AI code of conduct for the NHS, the principles of which include data and algorithm transparency and security by design. He added that, while people imagine that other parts of the world are significantly further ahead on AI in healthcare than the UK, we are actually "at a similar stage to the US."

Adam Steventon, director of data analytics at charity The Health Foundation, said that there are about 10,000 people analysing data in the NHS in the UK, but they are not properly supported. Most of their time is spent inputting data, not analysing it.

"Analysts have been stuck in the basement for too long," said Steventon. "They have a vital role to play in supporting innovative health services and supporting new forms of data."