UK trials AI system to speed up discharges

LONDON, UK – An artificial intelligence tool designed to speed up the discharge of patients is being trialled at a hospital trust in London. The platform completes documents needed to send fit patients home, potentially saving hours of delays and freeing up beds.

Wes Streeting (pictured), the health secretary, said the tech will enable doctors to spend less time on paperwork and more time focused on care, cutting waiting times in the process.

The platform, which is being piloted at Chelsea and Westminster NHS trust, extracts information from medical records, including diagnoses and test results.

This helps doctors to draft discharge summaries, which have to be completed before a person is sent home from hospital.

The document is then reviewed by healthcare professionals responsible for the patient and used to send them home or refer them to other services.

The manual system can sometimes leave patients waiting for hours to be discharged, as doctors may be too busy to fill in forms, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said.

Streeting said: “This potentially transformational discharge tool is a prime example of how we’re shifting from analogue to digital as part of our 10-year health plan.

“We’re using cutting-edge technology to build an NHS fit for the future and tackle the hospital backlogs that have left too many people waiting too long.

“Doctors will spend less time on paperwork and more time with patients, getting people home to their families faster and freeing up beds for those who need them most.”

The tool will be hosted on the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), a software system aiming to make it easier for healthcare organizations to work together and provide better services to patients.

In January, Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said AI will be used to “turn around” the economy and public services.

Elsewhere, the government has announced that technology shown to halve the time probation officers spend organizing notes will be launched later this year. The system helps to transcribe and take notes in meetings that probation officers have with offenders after they leave prison.

AI is also being trialled across the NHS. The technology will analyze hospital databases and catch potential safety scandals early, providing an early warning system which could detect patterns or trends and trigger urgent inspections.

And the NHS in England is trialling a “superhuman” AI tool that predicts a patient’s risk of disease and dying early.

Speaking on a visit to Chelsea and Westminster hospital, the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, said: “This is exactly the kind of change we need, AI being used to give doctors, probation officers and other key workers more time to focus on delivering better outcomes and speeding up vital services.

“This government inherited a public sector decimated by years of underinvestment and is crying out for reform.

“These AI exemplars show the best ways in which we’re using tech to build a smarter, more efficient state.

“When we get this right across government, we’re talking about unlocking £45 billion in productivity gains, delivering our plan for change and investing in growth, not bureaucracy.”