The NHS needs to cash in on data drive
As the NHS celebrates its 70th birthday, there has been a period of reflection, and an outpouring of nostalgia, about the contribution the service has made to the country since its foundation in 1948. And quite right too.
But as the UK embarks on its journey outside the European Union, and the NHS faces up to the cost pressures created by the nation’s ageing population, there is a need now to focus on what the service will look like over the next 70 years. Key to this will be ensuring that the UK makes the most of some incredible advances in medical technology and artificial intelligence.
Put simply, the UK is a world leader in AI – with only the US and China in our league. As the Government looks to deliver on its vision of Global Britain, the union between our world class healthcare system, and our cutting edge AI science, has the potential to provide the nation with one of its biggest Brexit success stories.
The opportunity that we need to unlock lies in the masses of data that the NHS holds; data that is collected by clinicians every time they log, for example, a patient’s temperature or blood test results.
On its own, that data can tell a doctor a great deal about a particular individual – such as their symptoms, or how they are responding to medication. But when grouped together with the anonymised information gleaned from the millions of patients who use the NHS each year, it can paint a much richer picture.
The gains are potentially enormous. The careful, ethical deployment of clinical AI has the potential to save lives, treat disease, spur the development of new medicines and improve quality of life – all the things that the NHS was set up to do.
Right now, scientists including those at Sensyne Health, where I am chief executive, are starting to scratch the surface to understand what that data means, using machine learning to turn it into insights that could revolutionise modern medicine.
Working in partnership with three NHS trusts, including Oxford University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, our technology has already led to ground-breaking discoveries. These include, for example, findings that have reduced the need for caesarean sections in pregnant women with gestational diabetes from 46pc to 27pc, and a trial that saw a 20pc reduction of the rate of cardiac arrest among patients. Uppermost is the need to treat patients’ privacy as sacrosanct, with all data anonymised and all identifying features removed.
Such is the potential in this data, that some have speculated that these vast NHS data sets are worth several billion pounds. We as a nation have a choice. We can give it to the AI specialists for free, and take the benefits that follow from the analysis – such as new drugs and new modes of treatment – or we can ensure that the NHS gets cash in the bank as well.
To my mind, it is vital that we ensure that the NHS sees the financial benefits of this massive national asset, particularly in the context of a Brexit that many voted for on the promise that it would lead to extra NHS funds.
That is why our health technology company has developed a pioneering model under which the NHS gets a financial return from the data we analyse. As part of our agreement with NHS trusts, the hospitals get an equity stake in the company and a share of the revenues that arise from any discoveries; the only such arrangement in place in Britain.
The Government has already said it wants to establish the UK as one of the most attractive locations in the world for data driven businesses, an issue that has all-party support.
Speaking on his appointment as Health Secretary last month, Matt Hancock highlighted the vast opportunities of new technology across healthcare. He was right to do so. The data that AI is able to analyse is a significant sovereign asset, one that is only going to grow in value as the technology to assess it becomes more and more sophisticated.
I am confident the UK will not let this opportunity slip through its grasp. In establishing the NHS 70 years ago, Britain set the tone for how healthcare should be delivered. In the months and years ahead, even as Brexit throws up short-term questions and priorities, we must ensure that we make the best use of this sovereign data, in order to achieve medical breakthroughs that have the power to transform lives.
‘The data that AI is able to analyse is a significant sovereign asset’