In its recently published 10-year plan for health, the UK government set out its vision for the NHS to be the “most artificial-intelligence-enabled care system in the world”. As DHSC begins to develop an AI Strategic Roadmap to realise this vision, dialogue between government, industry and academia will be essential to ensuring that the Department sets the right course of action.
With this context in mind, AI4Health – Imperial College London’s UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for Healthcare – hosted an event on 10 July, as part of London Data Week. ‘Embracing the future of AI in healthcare’ invited contributors to discuss the regulation of AI as a medical device; pathways to increase AI adoption in clinical settings, and how AI can drive efficiencies in the NHS. Throughout the discussions, speakers also noted the pressing need to upskill the NHS workforce in AI, something that the 10-year plan commits to doing.
Through its AI Policy Fellowship Programme, the Imperial Policy Forum has been at the forefront of increasing AI literacy within the public sector for several years. The Fellowship connects leading AI researchers and senior civil servants to improve understanding of how to harness AI’s capabilities to deliver a more efficient and responsive public sector.
Dr Colin Wilson, Deputy Director of Research Infrastructure in the Office for Life Sciences, and one of the 2025 cohort of Fellows, spoke at this year’s AI4Health event. Colin was invited to speak by his Fellowship mentor (Dr Ahmed Fetit, Senior Teaching Fellow at the Centre), illustrating the Fellowship’s success in building bridges across sectors.
In his talk, Dr Wilson emphasised the importance of concerted trust building efforts for the successful adoption of AI in clinical settings. He noted examples of where AI can lead to efficiency gains, as well as improving the effectiveness of diagnostics and treatments. He also considered the strengths and limitations of self-monitoring AI tools and encouraged attendees to consider the psychological aspects of clinicians working alongside increasingly ‘intelligent’ technology.
Speaking about his experience of his Fellowship after the event, Dr Wilson said that ‘it’s great to be able to hear the latest developments and also to be able to ask anything from really basic questions to strange edge cases and know you’ll get a helpful answer’. Illustrating the Fellowship’s success in improving the understanding of AI in government, Dr Wilson said that
‘it completely changed my understanding and led to a new direction for the work I was doing on trust around AI in healthcare’.
If you’d like to learn more about our Fellowship Scheme, please get in touch with Christina Taylor. More information about the AI4Health Centre can be found here. For those working at the intersection of health and technology – whether in government or academia – who are interested in collaborating with us, please contact Annabel Culley.