Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support hospital trusts to adopt AI technologies to assist with (a) interventions for and (b) treatment of (i) cancers, (ii) strokes and (iii) heart conditions.

The Department is funding the AI in Health and Care Award which has provided £123 million to 86 artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The Award was created to accelerate the testing and evaluation of some of the most promising AI technologies that can support clinicians. Through the Award, projects are being funded to support clinicians in diagnosing and treating cancers, strokes, and heart conditions. For example, as of December 2023, AI for use in stroke is deployed in 92% of stroke units in England, substantially lowering the time it takes for people to receive treatment.

In June 2023, the Department announced a £21 million AI diagnostics fund to support imaging networks in England to adopt AI technologies into the lung cancer pathway. Funding has been allocated to 11 imaging networks, covering 64 trusts. In addition, the Department is piloting an AI deployment platform to see if a centralised platform could facilitate the deployment of AI technologies for radiology.