BT on the future of AI in healthcare, digital transformation and the tech-enabled future of the NHS
Both BT and the NHS have undergone monumental change since first joining forces in the immediate post-war years and to this day, the two organisations remain closely linked.
BT’s connectivity and infrastructure solution can be found in every health
Can you go into more detail on future-ready infrastructure in the NHS?
Cloud provisioning in the NHS is not where it needs to be.
We know that there are specific challenges that it creates in terms of data provisioning, so the moving to a public cloud is important, but also expensive.
We’ve got a range of solutions to train infrastructure with hybrid cloud solutions.
We’re working with the likes of AWS, Microsoft and Google for the direct cloud services.
We have an ecosystem of partners in the hybrid cloud space: Dell, Equinox, Rackspace.
We work in verticals like that, and we architect a multi-hospital or multi-system cloud infrastructure.
We started that with the likes of Liverpool University Hospital Trust and the provision is there for 20 or 30 organisations to put their [data] on that system.
There are pounds to be saved for the NHS, but also lots of sustainability […] benefits.
The second thing is, we’ve got a national data platform that Palantir have been awarded.
We’re working with some of the organisations who are saying, ‘this is a great system, but the pipes it sits on need to be much better’.
Better connectivity and networking is a crucial thing and nobody has a better network than BT.
Mission critical systems are better on BT because of the pedigree we have, but also the engineering base.
There are barriers in terms of where the technology is now.
But what about other barriers, like resistance from leadership within the NHS, for example?
One of the main barriers at the moment is elective recovery.
There is a need for the commercial sector, like BT and others, to interlock with the NHS on a really close basis.
That doesn’t mean that everyone has to get a contract, but I think there should be good, strong partnerships where we work together to co-create solutions.
Is health an area where you really have to be collaborative with other major tech players?
I think collaboration and partnership is the only way we’re going to deliver.
If you think about the EPR vendors, the people who implement APIs, the global hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, Microsoft – these are all important entities.
Underneath that, there are also hardware providers and service and design providers that we all need to work together with.
We all have different strengths.
I think permission needs to be given around commercial relationships, because all the names I’ve mentioned are supporting the NHS because it’s 10 per cent of GDP.
The NHS needs to be bullish about partnerships, saying, ‘here are our problems, come in and have a chat’.
That way you’ll sort the wheat from the chaff and you’ll move really quickly,
The new government will need to really encourage the NHS and the commercial sector to work closely without fear of reprisal.
Because you’re not breaking any rules by collaborating and defining problem statements, if you keep that public.
As an organisation, are you engaged in the whole conversation about the future of AI?
The thing with AI is there is a lot of noise around it. Most of the opportunities are around back office and management.
If you think about how long it takes to recruit someone in the NHS, AI can do that recruitment in terms of the paperwork and admin really quickly – better than humans.
If you think about areas such as procurement and pricing, AI can do an awful lot in finance, HR, admin and clinical coding.
It can do this really quickly and find savings.
AI is going to change the world. There’s no question about that.
A lot of the basic stuff that AI and ML can do is admin. It’s low hanging fruit, it doesn’t have a regulatory barrier, but the NHS needs to move quicker.
That low hanging fruit, we should just get on with.
In terms of replacing people’s jobs, some of that is based on large language models and people who understand the science know that that is some way away.
We have ethics built into everything that we do.
Anything that comes into the NHS will have a thorough ethical and governance process underpinning it through BT’s standard processes, which are quite a high bar.
