20
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NHS cannot embrace AI until its basic IT systems are up to scratch. Prof Sir Martin Landray: clinical IT functions are slow and ‘devastatingly user unfriendly’
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- Title
- NHS cannot embrace AI until its basic IT systems are up to scratch
- Authors
- James Tapper, Robin McKie
- Published
- Sep 15 2024
- Word count
- 677 words
If I want an appointment to see my GP, I have to ring my local clinic at 8AM on the dot, wait in a lengthy queue and hope that they can fit me in for that day. My local clinic doesn't accept online bookings and even if they did, the NHS website is really archaic and user unfriendly.
Compare this to my private medical insurance provider (Vitality) who let me schedule a virtual GP appointment via their app.
Kind of funny reading this as an American. None of the (private insurance only) GPs around me allow online booking; you have to call. None are accepting bookings for new patients unless you're willing to wait 3+ months. And only one accepts my (pretty good!) insurance.
It's a lot like British rail: I understand that it's far from perfect, but as an American, I'm consistently impressed when I visit because it's SO much better than here.
Of course, that's really more a statement about how bad things are in the USA than it is an endorsement of quality in the UK.
From my perspective, I'd be OK if AI stayed out of healthcare indefinitely. Instead of wasting money on GPUs, we should invest in nurses and doctors.
My GPs web booking service has the same opening hours, and the same restrictions as the phone system. It's quite pointless. You've got to be on the web site hammering on the refresh button and hoping to type in all your crap before other people get all the slots, then it closes.
My GP used to offer some appointments through a web portal, but at some point they got rid of that other than for blood tests (which need a GP referral anyway) and children's vaccinations. Incredibly frustrating because I'd used it just fine in the past and now we're back to, again phoning at exactly 8am and convincing a receptionist that my problem is "urgent" or it's no appointment for you.
It's never going to be good if it's always outsourced to the lowest bidder who doesn't have any incentive to provide anything above the bare minimum.
I'm part of a project to integrate better cybersecurity into the NHS and whenever there's a change request, the outsourced team needs to have a meeting with another outsourced team to figure out who's responsible for doing the work.
Without actually competent IT people in the NHS who are empowered to do good work, we'll be behind for a while still.