AI can help the NHS beat Cancer - But at What Cost?

Founded in 1948, the National Health Service, (NHS) is a valued asset to the United Kingdom. Thus naturally, when ideas are proposed to revolutionise its workings, skepticism follows such innovations. Prime Minister Theresa May has urged the NHS and challenged health charities and the AI sector to collaborate for cancer detecting treatment which is claimed to 22, 000 cancer deaths by 2033.

This is not the first time that the NHS has employed AI to help it save lives. In January of this year, 2018, researchers at John Radcliffe Hospital developed a system that they claim could detect heart diseases and lung cancer much soon, inevitably saving a possibility of billions of pounds. Currently, out of "60,000 heart scans carried out each year, 12,000 are reportedly misdiagnosed at an estimated cost of £600 million."

The new technology is due to be available to NHS hospitals this 2018 Summer - for free. Geneticist Sir John Bell, has said that incorporating AI could "save the NHS."

The plan set forth by the UK Government is for cancer detection to be done "through using emerging technologies to cross reference people’s genetics, habits and medical records with national data to spot those at an early stage of cancer – empowering doctors to make referrals to an oncologist earlier and even ahead of clear symptoms developing."

​May has stated that harnessing genetic information and medical records to create programs that diagnose disease at the earliest stage is crucial to the nation’s prosperity.

For all of this to be possible, the AI system used will need access to patients medical records, genetics and even habits to cross reference data to quickly detect diseases. This has the potential so save so many lives at a much faster rate than we are currently capable of. Yet with the increased sensitive data sharing between companies, it also has the potential for some privacy risks. Increasing protection and monitoring in this area to meet these new demands, would enable trust to be built and for the literal life saving capabilities of AI in the NHS - the public needs to have trust in their healthcare system. 

Chief Executive Officer of the charity Cancer Research, Sir Harpal Kumar, states;
"We need to ensure we have the right infrastructure, embedded in our health system, to make this possible."

- It is imperative that although collaboration with the AI and technology sector be welcomed, that the innovations made be NHS owned. 

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 effectively "abolished" the NHS in legislative terms, making way for privatisation. Although it can be argued that "the NHS can benefit from partnerships and joint ventures with the private sector to deliver some clinical and non-clinical services", to ensure that profits do not over shadow the needs of the people, the services and systems that the NHS employs will need a working relationship where the NHS - and thus the people - is the main benefactors, with providing safe and accessible health care remaining the main priority in the relationship. 

- Where money is saved in the NHS by utilizing smart technology and AI systems to configure and cross reference data at high speed, for the NHS to flourish as a result of this technology, that money is needed to be reinvested into the hospitals and health care system.

For an example, should the NHS 'save' £10, 000, (out of the £20,000 that they 'would have spent' without the new AI system), only to have that saved money redirected to another department in government, the once saved money essentially becomes an NHS 'donation' to another part of the government sector. Thus, the NHS is financially back where would have been without the AI system - it spent £20, 000.

Reinvesting the money saved as a result of using AI systems, back into the NHS, would help refuel other sectors within the health system that need attention such as staff organisation and approaches to purchasing.

The UK Government would need to employ transparency to ensure that the methods used for working with the AI sector does not threaten the NHS's independence and also in order to monitor where and how the saved money is reinvested.

Ultimately, the potential for AI to help the NHS save thousands of peoples lives, improve our health care systems efficiency - and possibly help us learn more about the diseases that we are tackling in the process - should be a welcomed collaboration of ethics meeting AI.