‘I think it was the first time that the general public had really been exposed to the power of AI and how easily accessible it is – you can have it on your phone or your laptop; you don’t need some supercomputer in the hospital to use this powerful technology.’
it’s important for doctors from all specialties to have an understanding of AI – and crucially, to know the right questions to ask. ‘We’re about to be hit by hundreds of companies knocking on the NHS’s door and they’re going to say, “Hey, we’ve got AI, we can solve this problem for you.” We need people in the NHS to understand what they’re doing, to be more cautious but also to get the best out of the technologies that there are.’
He and his colleagues were perhaps most excited about ambient note-taking (see Super scribe, below) for automatic transcription. But an AI-enabled stethoscope which can diagnose heart abnormalities and disease in 15 seconds impressed him, too.
What he really liked about the tool, however, was that it also helped with workflow in terms of what to do if a patient is incidentally found to have heart failure, for example. ‘It tells you who to refer to and what medications to start. Often, when AI is rolled out, it’s done in isolation without really an understanding of how it affects people’s workflows and what it means for service redesign. But this was packaged as something you can actually use, and tells you what you should be doing about whatever the AI solution might be throwing up.’
‘Doctors need to be front and centre of discussions – along with patients. There’s no question the tech is great, but it’s the implementation we need to get right. We need to think about the impact on training, on staff, integrating into workflows, the unanticipated consequences of change. All these things can necessarily only be figured out if doctors are involved throughout the life cycle of the design and deployment of AI.’
The NHS Clinical Fellowship in AI is a 12-month programme integrated part-time alongside clinical work. Applications for the fourth cohort are expected to open this month, with the programme running from August 2025 to August 2026.
‘If you’re taking notes yourself, you are using two different bits of your brain: the memory bit is working really hard to structure and organise [information], while your creative thinking and processing bit is trying to come up with novel solutions,’ he says.
‘Now my energies are totally focused on problem-solving, finding creative solutions for the patient.’
‘Let’s not all go chasing AI unicorns: we need to be looking at the lower-hanging fruit. The functional admin side of things is the easiest thing where we can have a dramatic impact on care delivery almost overnight.’
He wants to see more doctors involved in advising not only manufacturers, but also central bodies such as NHS England. ‘You need to have clinicians on board who are actually using products day in day out, and have an understanding of what they need,’ he says. ‘Otherwise, we end up with the delivery of stuff that’s completely hopeless.’