Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to what extent their Department makes use of artificial intelligence in the implementation of its policies; and how much was spent from their Department’s budget on artificial intelligence in each of the last three years.

The National Health Service Artificial Intelligence (AI) Laboratory is leading the Department’s work to accelerate the safe, ethical and effective development and use of AI-driven technologies to help tackle challenges in health and social care, including earlier cancer detection, addressing priorities in the NHS Long Term Plan and relieving pressure on the workforce. The Department incurred expenditure of £17 million in 2020/21 related to the delivery of programmes within the NHS AI Lab. There was no prior expenditure in previous financial years.