Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to regulate health advice on AI overviews on internet browsers.

NHS England and the Department are taking steps to ensure that health related information is easily available and well-structured to support safe and reliable answers by artificial intelligence (AI), including AI overviews in internet browsers. The NHS.UK website and information provided through the NHS App on different health conditions is clinically assured and we are working with different technology providers to encourage the use of verified and trusted health information to train their AI models to provide content to citizens.

Where AI tools meet the definition of a medical device, they fall under the regulation of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). General‑purpose AI systems that do not qualify as medical devices, such as AI‑generated summaries within search engines, may fall within the scope of the Online Safety Act. Services covered by the act must protect users from illegal and harmful content, including misleading health information. The Government has asked Ofcom to use its existing powers to safeguard users and will consider further action if needed.