NHSE to launch £6m AI research screening platform

NHS England is building a £6 million AI research screening platform to enable trusts to join trials of AI in screening to help speed up diagnosis. 

The cloud system, dubbed AIR-SP, will offer NHS staff access to AI tools in trials to help analyse screening images and pinpoint abnormalities, including possible signs of cancer. 

It is being funded by £6 million from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and is expected to launch for research purposes in 2027.

Wes Streeting, health secretary, said: “The AI revolution is here, and we are arming staff with the latest ground-breaking technology, so patients get faster and smarter care.

“As our world-leading scientists develop new lifesaving AI tools, this new cloud platform will see them rolled out to patients in research trials right across the country – so staff can treat patients quicker with cutting-edge tech.”

Currently, the NHS lacks the digital tools to deploy AI in screening quickly, safely, and at scale, with 90% of AI tools remaining stuck in pilot phases due to over-reliance on temporary IT setups in each trust.

Even if a tool is deemed effective by one NHS trust, other trusts must start the process of testing the tool from scratch and set up new databases to access images generated by the AI.

The new platform, which will take approximately two years to build, will hold multiple AI tools in a single environment with secure connections to all NHS trusts, to cut down the time and costs associated with rolling out AI research studies.

Dr Layla McCay, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said: “Health leaders will welcome the announcement that AI tools will be tested in NHS screening services, allowing staff access to state-of-the-art programmes for research purposes. 

“Our members tell us about the challenges rolling out AI tools at scale, and the impact of duplication of testing across sites, which hopefully this platform can help to address.”

The platform means that in the future tools could be tested and trialled at the same time in any NHS trust, with a view to rolling them out to the frontline if they prove to be effective.

It will first be used to support nearly 700,000 women taking part in an NIHR-funded trial, identifying changes in breast tissue that show possible signs of cancer and referring them for further investigations if required.

The platform is expected to save £2-3 million for every multi-site study.

Professor Lucy Chappell, chief scientific adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care and chief executive Officer at the NIHR, said: “In order to unlock the potential of AI in healthcare, we need digital infrastructure that enables researchers to rigorously evaluate these tools in real-world NHS settings, at speed and scale.

“This unified AI research screening platform will help us to understand how AI can safely and effectively improve patient care, while speeding up the time it takes to set up AI research studies and reducing costs.”