AI to be trialled at unprecedented scale across NHS screening

• Move will decrease time to set up multisite AI trials following approval, helping revolutionise patient care and saving millions
• Delivering on the Plan for Change, it supports the shift of care from analogue to digital while driving vital investment and reaffirming UK's position as tech superpower

Millions of patients could receive quicker diagnoses and treatment, as pioneering artificial intelligence tools are tested on an unprecedented scale in NHS screening services, thanks to a ground-breaking new cloud system.

A new AI research screening platform dubbed AIR-SP - backed by nearly £6 million in government funding – is being built by NHS England to enable trusts across the country to join trials of AI in screening to help speed up diagnosis. It will offer NHS staff access to revolutionary AI tools in trials to help analyse screening images and pinpoint abnormalities, including possible signs of cancer. 

Currently, the NHS lacks the digital tools to deploy AI in screening quickly, safely, and at scale - 90% of AI tools remain stuck in pilot phases due to over-reliance on temporary IT setups in each individual trust. Even if one tool is deemed effective by one trust, every single other trust in the NHS must start the process of testing the tool from scratch and set up new databases to access images generated by the AI.

The new NHS-wide cloud will hold multiple AI tools in a single environment that will have secure connections to all NHS trusts. It will dramatically cut down the time and costs associated with rolling out AI research studies, as the government's Plan for Change shifts the health service from analogue to digital.

Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said:

The AI revolution is here, and we are arming staff with the latest ground-breaking technology, so patients get faster and smarter care.

As our world-leading scientists develop new lifesaving AI tools, this new cloud platform will see them rolled out to patients in research trials right across the country - so staff can treat patients quicker with cutting-edge tech.

This government is reinstating the UK's position as a technology superpower – driving vital investment and economic growth as we build an NHS fit for the 21st century.

The new platform, which will take approximately two years to build, means futuristic tools could in future be tested and trialled at the same time, in any trust across the health service, with a view to rolling them out to the NHS frontline if they're proved effective.

It will first be used to support nearly 700,000 women across the country taking part in a historic National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)-funded trial, identifying changes in breast tissue that show possible signs of cancer and referring them for further investigations if required.

As it stands, costly IT solutions across multiple trusts - up to £3.5 million per study - are required for each research study involving several projects to ensure AI access to images. The new unified platform will simplify this process, reducing costs by millions of pounds per study, and enabling multiple AI products to be tested in one secure environment. It is expected to save £2-3 million for every multi-site study.

The building of the digital platform is being funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research and is expected to be rolled out for research purposes in 2027.

Dr Kevin Dunbar, NHS Deputy Director of Public Health, Vaccination and Screening Directorate, said:

This innovative cloud platform will help vastly accelerate research into the use of AI to enhance vital NHS screening programmes.

By enabling trusts and patients across the country to participate in landmark AI trials in the coming years, it will combine cutting-edge technology with clinical expertise to improve care for patients as well as NHS productivity.

Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Chief Executive Officer of the NIHR said:

In order to unlock the potential of AI in healthcare, we need digital infrastructure that enables researchers to rigorously evaluate these tools in real-world NHS settings, at speed and scale.

This unified AI Research Screening Platform will help us to understand how AI can safely and effectively improve patient care, while speeding up the time it takes to set up AI research studies and reducing costs.

The government is already harnessing artificial intelligence and innovative technology to transform patient care. Clinicians are being supported to use ground-breaking AI tools that bulldoze bureaucracy and take notes to free up staff time and deliver better care to patients.

A world-first AI early warning system is also being developed to automatically identify safety concerns across the NHS, and red tape has been cut to ensure that NHS patients will be the first in Europe to benefit from a new non-invasive liver cancer treatment.

The government has also rolled out pioneering new technology to ensure that millions of cancer patients can receive a faster diagnosis.

Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said:

Health leaders will welcome announcement that artificial intelligence tools will be tested in NHS screening services, allowing staff access to state-of-the-art programmes for research purposes. Our members tell us about the challenges rolling out AI tools at scale, and the impact of duplication of testing across sites, which hopefully this platform can help to address.

Investing in digital technologies like AI and the high-tech IT infrastructure the NHS needs to provide patients with a service fit for the 21st century is crucial to the government's ambitions of moving from an analogue system to one that is fully digitised.

Simon Vincent, chief scientific officer at Breast Cancer Now, said:

Currently, 11,500 tragically die from breast cancer each year in the UK. But breast screening is a key tool for detecting breast cancer early, and critically, the sooner it's diagnosed the more likely it is that treatment will be successful.

We therefore welcome the government's investment in the new artificial intelligence (AI) screening platform being built by NHS England. We hope that the introduction of this single shared system will make it both quicker and easier for Trusts across the UK to test AI tools that could hold the potential to improve early detection and make the breast screening programme even more effective. 

Breast screening is estimated to prevent around 1,300 deaths from breast cancer each year in the UK. As such we welcome an approach that could see even more lives saved from this devastating disease through screening and look forward to seeing the results of this research.