The government has just announced plans to open five centres of excellence for healthcare technology across the UK. The centres will be in London, Glasgow, Coventry, Oxford and Leeds and plan to advance artificial intelligence for medical use. It is hoped that exploring and promoting healthcare AI in these centres will contribute to quicker diagnosis times and improving overall patient care.
The business secretary, Greg Clark, announced the plans for the five new centres. He explains that the centres will be a collaboration between academics, businesses and doctors to develop digital technology that can improve the healthcare industry. The centres of excellence will be used to create the devices and tools that can improve early diagnosis of cancer and other diseases.
While the centres are located as part of the Industrial Strategy, they will partner with other businesses and centres around the country. Greg Clark explains; “Our modern Industrial Strategy puts pioneering technologies at the heart of our plans to build a Britain fit for the future. The innovation at these new centres will help diagnose disease earlier to give people more options when it comes to their treatment, and make reporting more efficient, freeing up time for our much-admired NHS staff time to spend on direct patient care.”
How The Centres Can Help Frontline Medical Staff
With medical staff reporting an increase in admittance for complex cases, it is hoped that the significant investment in healthcare technology centres will help to provide a better understanding of complex diseases and how they develop as well as the ways to prevent and cure them.
With the focus on speed of diagnosis, the healthcare technology centres have the chance to reduce the pressure on medical staff and provide them with more time to deliver better care to their patients. Some of the investment within the centres will focus on critical aspects such as image analysis and large-scale genomics.
As well as government funding, the five centres will also have the involvement of leading medical companies such as Siemens, Philips, GE Healthcare, Leica, Roche Diagnostics and Canon.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, continues to focus on artificial intelligence as he believes it plays ‘a crucial role in the future of the NHS’. He explains; “As part of our long-term plan, we will transform the NHS into an ecosystem of enterprise and innovation that allows technology to flourish and evolve.”
