Ministers mull allowing private firms to make profit from NHS data in AI push
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Anonymised data could help develop treatments, drugs and diagnostic tools but potential misuse worries experts. Ministers are considering allowing private companies to make profits from NHS data as part of a push to revolutionise the health service using artificial intelligence, government officials have indicated.
Keir Starmer on Monday announced a push to open up the government to AI innovation, including allowing companies to use anonymised patient data to develop new treatments, drugs and diagnostic tools. With the prime minister and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, under pressure over Britain’s economic outlook, Starmer said AI could bolster the country’s anaemic growth, as he put concerns over privacy, disinformation and discrimination to one side.
“We are in a unique position in this country, because we’ve got the National Health Service, and the use of that data has already driven forward advances in medicine, and will continue to do so,” he told an audience in east London. “We have to see this as a huge opportunity that will impact on the lives of millions of people really profoundly.”.
Starmer added: “It is important that we keep control of that data. I completely accept that challenge, and we will also do so, but I don’t think that we should have a defensive stance here that will inhibit the sort of breakthroughs that we need.”.
