NHS England and government experts to convene AI group

NHS England and the Government are to set up an expert group to ensure that the NHS takes advantage of the opportunities that artificial intelligence can provide, as set out in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.

The plan, published last week, includes a chapter focused on taking full advantage of digital and technological innovations such as speech recognition, robotic process automation, remote monitoring and AI.

In the section titled ‘Upskilling the workforce’, the plan explains the need to “skill our workforce to maximize opportunities from technological and digital innovations” and highlights the NHS Digital Academy as the home for digital learning and development. refers to the establishment.

The document confirms that a digital skills assessment tool that addresses digital literacy needs across the workforce will be rolled out by the end of 2023/24. The Digital Learning Solutions platform provides health and social care organizations with access to centrally and locally created online digital skills training content.

Based on the Topol review, the task force plan states that “NHS England and the government will convene an expert group to ensure that the NHS can take advantage of the opportunities that AI can offer”.

The group will draw on previous work from Health Education England (HEE) to identify what skills and training NHS staff may need to make best use of AI, as well as the anticipated impact of AI on NHS staff groups.

HN chief executive Mark England has welcomed the focus on AI in the NHS long-term workforce plan. “It is positive to see a partially funded outlook on the workforce of the future, plans to sustain and improve careers, and proposals for how employees can use and operate new technology.

“It is right that advanced technology and AI are at the forefront of this workforce plan and we welcome the intention to set up an expert group to identify advanced technologies for the NHS,” he added.

“Productivity can be increased by entirely new models of care, and our workforce models need to accommodate this innovation.”

The document also states that there is greater potential for AI in clinical support, contributing to administrative processes through applications such as speech recognition, predictive health analysis, patient triage, and preventive health care.

In a more general sense, the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan has three main objectives:

• train We are heavily staffed so we have the right number of doctors, nurses and midwives, GPs, dentists, allied health professionals, pharmacy staff and other staff.
• maintain Our dedicated NHS workforce focussing on equality and inclusion allows for greater flexibility and career progression and improvements in culture, leadership and wellbeing.
• Improvement The way we work means healthcare workers have the right multidisciplinary skills and can access new digital and technological innovations, allowing them to focus on patient care.

The plan also highlights the potential of virtual wards as well as a proposal to set up a federated data platform (FDP) to provide easy access to data to staff.