NHS to roll out AI to improve waiting times and reduce missed appointments

Every year, missed hospital appointments are estimated to cost the NHS £1.2bn

The NHS has announced that it’s set to roll out artificial intelligence (AI) to help improve waiting times for elective care and reduce the number of missed appointments.

New data has shown that 6.4% of over 125 million outpatient appointments across the NHS in England last year were not attended by the patient, specifically for physiotherapy, cardiology, ophthalmology, trauma and orthopaedics.

Additionally, missed appointments are predicted to cost the NHS a total of £1.2bn, annually.

Created by Deep Medical, the AI software uses algorithms and anonymised data to predict missed appointments and uses a range of external insights as to why, such as the weather, traffic, jobs and back-up bookings.

Piloted for the last six months at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, the software will expand to ten more NHS trusts following the success of the pilot, which has seen a total of 377 prevented do not attends (DNAs), as well as an additional 1,910 patients being seen and is estimated to save a total of £27.5m a year.

Furthermore, the software is also able to arrange appointments that are convenient for patients and implement intelligent back-up bookings to ensure clinical time is not lost.

Most recently, an additional £3.4bn of capital funding was confirmed via the budget to allow the NHS to double investment in new technology and further continue the work already being done.

Health Minister Lord Markham said: “AI is transforming the way we deliver healthcare and this technology will help cut waiting lists…, allow hundreds of thousands more patients to be seen every year…, free up doctors’ time, deliver quicker test results, and save tens of millions of pounds every year”.

Dr Deldar, co-founder, Deep Medical, said: “Deep Medical could help save lives by offering appointments to help bridge healthcare gaps for faster, more personalised experience without the long wait” and “will allow… more appointments to be utilised; saving money and providing vital care to the public”.