Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's press release entitled AI doctors’ assistant to speed up appointments a ‘gamechanger’, published on 27 April 2025, what steps he is taking to ensure quality control safeguards.

NHS England is committed to supporting and enabling the safe deployment and adoption of new technology for the National Health Service. The adoption of ambient voice technology (AVT) solutions holds transformative potential for any care setting. Their adoption, when used safely and securely, is to be encouraged to improve both the quality of patient care and operational efficiency. NHS England has published guidance on how digital technologies should be approved for use in the NHS, covering key areas such as implementation, information governance, data, security, privacy, and controls. Additional national guidance explains how AVT solutions should be selected, deployed, and scaled. These standards are required for any AVT solution to be considered safe, effective, and eligible for NHS adoption.

There are strict safeguards in place throughout the NHS to protect data. All providers of services which handle patient data must protect that data in line with UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and every health organisation is required to appoint a Caldicott Guardian to advise on the protection of people’s health and care data, and to ensure it is used properly. This includes where artificial intelligence (AI) is used in relation to patient records.

To mitigate the likelihood and severity of any potential harm to individuals arising from the use of data in AI, the Information Commissioners Office has developed detailed AI guidance which provides information on data protection, including Data Protection Impact Assessments and UK GDPR. It has also produced an AI toolkit to support organisations auditing the compliance of their AI-based technologies. NHS bodies are expected to make use of this guidance and toolkit, including those using AVTs.