NHS: Automation

Debate between Viscount Ridley and Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford

Monday 15th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Baroness is correct to say that patients and clinicians have a right to expect their data to be held securely. Since the WannaCry attack in May 2017, we have taken steps to ensure that NHS security measures are of the highest standard. This includes £60 million to improve cyber resilience in local infrastructure, support for NHS organisations to update their Windows operating systems, procuring a new cybersecurity operations centre, and boosting the national capability to prevent, detect and respond to cyberattacks. We are also committed to achieving much greater operational visibility across all NHS digital systems. This is one of the ways in which we can respond to attacks. Lastly, we expect the highest ethical standards from all data-driven systems and that is why we have introduced the code of conduct for data-driven health and care technology. That is how we will ensure that we have some of the best AI and data-driven technologies.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with one of the key points made by Professor Topol that one of the benefits of artificial intelligence is the “gift of time”, as he has put it? In other words, patients can spend more time with their doctor if certain more routine things are automated. Will my noble friend make sure that that is one of the key aims of bringing automation into healthcare?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

My noble friend is right. One of the key recommendations is that by automating routine analyses such as radiology, diagnoses and pathology and routinely bringing in AI to sequence bed management, we will reduce the burden on clinicians so that they are able to see more patients. The review makes specific recommendations to help the workforce become more digital ready, which means increasing capacity and capability, and building the right environment. That is exactly what we have embedded into the NHS people plan and all that we are working on through NHSX.

Tobacco Harm Reduction

Debate between Viscount Ridley and Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the levels of smoking and incidence of lung cancer in Sweden as a result of steps taken by that government; and what plans Ministers have to visit that country as part of their forthcoming review of tobacco harm reduction.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)]

My Lords, the current smoking rate in Sweden is 13%, compared to England where the rate is 14.9% and, across the UK, 15.1%. There are no current plans to visit Sweden. Smoking is at the lowest level recorded in England but we are not complacent and remain committed to reducing the rate to 12% or less by 2022, as outlined in the tobacco control plan for England.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. She will be aware that the policy of harm reduction, whereby a less harmful new technology is used to displace a more harmful technology, was pioneered in this country by the noble Lord the Lord Speaker when he was Health Secretary in the 1980s with respect to needle exchanges and HIV. Such a policy has since proved effective in the introduction of e-cigarettes. However, in Sweden, the adult smoking rate is now down to 5% because of another harm-reduction technology, snus—the little teabag of snuff tobacco that one presses against one’s gum and is widely used in Sweden. As a result, there are low lung cancer rates in that country but, because snus is banned in the EU, we are currently unable to follow. Could we not save tens of thousands of lives if we were to legalise this technology when we left the EU at the end of next week?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank my noble friend for his question and join him in paying tribute to the noble Lord the Lord Speaker’s role in harm reduction. No tobacco product is safe to consume, due to its links to cancers. As my noble friend says, snus is banned under the EU tobacco products directive as an oral product, except in Sweden. We have made a commitment under the tobacco control plan that, following EU exit, the Government will consider reviewing the position on snus and whether the introduction of the product to the UK market would promote the kind of proportionate harm-reduction approach that he proposes. However, there is no evidence that snus in Sweden has reduced smoking rates, so the matter is very much under review.