Britain plans tech revolution in health despite budget cuts

Smart watches and wearable tech tipped to ease pressure on beleaguered National Health Service

Britain's Health Ministry says plans to overhaul the NHS will be 'powered by cutting-edge technology'. PA

Britain could hand out smart watches for patients to monitor their health at home under plans to ease pressure on the struggling National Health Service.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said his plans to overhaul the NHS will be “powered by cutting-edge technology, that helps us stay healthy and out of hospital”. Patients could be alerted via their smartphone if they have unusually high blood pressure or glucose levels.

Patient data and test results will be rolled into an app under Mr Streeting's plans to “shift from analogue to digital” in the NHS. However, he refused to rule out cuts to the UK's science and research funding in a belt-tightening budget on October 30, the first under Britain's Labour government.

Prominent scientists and universities have written to Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves warning that Britain's economic growth could be “undermined by the false economy of short-term cuts”. They said spending on research would “drive high-skill sectors and cutting-edge technologies”.

Mr Streeting said on Sunday that the Chancellor “has had more letters than Father Christmas at this stage of the year”. He told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that research and innovation were important for growth but “so is good transport infrastructure, so is education and skills”.

“We can’t fund everything, everywhere, all at once, so you’ve got to bear with us here because we inherited a real state,” Mr Streeting said. “We can’t have a situation where the NHS budget balloons and balloons and balloons because we don’t reform the system.”

A review by Iraqi-born professor Lord Darzi informed Mr Streeting last month that the health service, founded in 1948, was “in serious trouble” due to long waiting lists, overburdened hospitals, growing ill health and public dissatisfaction with the NHS. Labour is looking at expanding the use of private providers.

Despite the potential research cuts, Mr Streeting said there was money for technology within the health budget as he predicted it would “transform how patients are cared for, making their lives infinitely easier and the NHS fit for the future”.

“One of the things that we’ve prioritised during the budget round is making sure that we’re taking steps particularly on capital and tech that will enable us to run a more productive, a more efficient NHS so that we get both better outcomes for patients but also better value for taxpayers’ money,” Mr Streeting said.

He said his 10-year plan to make the NHS a “neighbourhood health service” would include a “shift from analogue to digital, with the NHS not just benefiting from but actively driving the revolution in life sciences, med tech and data”.

Britain's health department will “look at the options for expanding access” to wearable technology such as smart watches, it said. Patients with type 2 diabetes are among those who could be encouraged to see their doctor less frequently, freeing up appointments.

The G7 countries last week threw their support behind using artificial intelligence in health care, saying the technology should be used “to its full potential” in diagnosing illnesses, recommending treatments and developing new medicines.

Ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the US, Canada and Japan said the first task was to gather data on patients to be processed by AI algorithms, in a way that “respects security and privacy”. They acknowledged this would come with “technical and cultural challenges” over trust in the technology.

Doctors in the UAE have used AI to improve success rates for IVF. Trainee eye doctors were outsmarted by ChatGPT in a study published in April. Britain recently announced funding for a promising AI-assisted blood test that could detect 12 cancers.