Signify Premium Insight: NHS Awards and the Route to AI Adoption

Last month, the winners of the second tranche of the NHS AI Lab’s AI in Health and Care Award were revealed. Some 38 artificial intelligence projects will benefit from the £36m that the UK government has pledged to “revolutionise” care and diagnostics in the NHS.

The selected projects represent different product categories and specialisms, while projects of different levels of maturity are also backed, from those at phase one, where a concept, product or service’s technical and clinical feasibility needs to be proved, to phase four, for AI technologies with market authorisation, but insufficient evidence to merit large-scale commissioning or deployment. While several of these solutions emanate from outside of the UK, as the programme was established to improve care in the UK, many of them also have established partnerships and pilots within the country. This local focus will give some vendors a considerable boost, but will it be enough to drive use of these AI tools in the UK?