Oxford AI studies secure NIHR funding to tackle NHS waiting times

Two studies have received funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) as part of an £8 million initiative supporting AI projects aimed at reducing NHS waiting times and improving patient care.

Through its Invention for Innovation (i4i) programme, the NIHR awarded £8,136,409 to six projects testing a range of AI and digital innovations.

The studies – SAMURAI-CT, led by Oxford Clinical Artificial Intelligence Research (OxCAIR) at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH), and SMART-XR, for which OUH is the lead site and sponsor – form part of a wider Oxford-led programme that is establishing a comprehensive platform to evaluate clinical AI technologies.

Professor Lucy Chappell, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care and chief executive of the NIHR, said this backing would help “to drive the fundamental shift from an analogue to a digital health service and deliver the government’s 10 year health plan“.

“This important investment in AI and innovation will cut NHS waiting times, fast-tracking diagnoses and ensuring patients receive more accessible, efficient, and high-quality care,” she added.

The SAMURAI-CT study will evaluate AI-assisted analysis of head CT scans in emergency departments, examining whether AI can help clinicians identify urgent abnormalities in the brain more rapidly and reduce delays in care.

SMART-XR, which is being carried out in partnership with MedTech company Harrison.ai, will assess whether AI can safely report chest X-rays autonomously by comparing AI assessments against 12 months of imaging data from OUH and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.

Another OUH-linked project also received funding. SWIFT LUNG is testing an AI tool developed by Oxford spin-out Optellum that predicts lung cancer risk in patients with lung nodules.

Despite rapid advances in AI, generating robust evidence of how these systems perform in real-world clinical settings remains a major challenge.

To address this challenge, OxCAIR researchers and collaborators from across the NHS have established the SAMURAI (Systematic Assessment of Medical Utility of Radiology Artificial Intelligence) programme, a coordinated portfolio of studies designed to evaluate AI technologies across the entire clinical translation pathway.

Dr Alex Novak, co-director of OxCAIR, said: “The studies we are undertaking look at all aspects of the use of AI in healthcare – from establishing the necessary ethical, governance and data infrastructure, to evaluating how AI affects the performance of clinicians or assessing the real-world clinical impact of AI systems in routine practice.

“Together, they will provide a comprehensive framework for generating the evidence required for the safe, effective and scalable adoption of AI across healthcare.

“They will also explore how AI can be used not simply as a diagnostic tool, but as a means of transforming clinical workflows and expanding healthcare capacity.”