Oppose the new Health Plan: NHS Staff, not AI

In his final act as Health Secretary, Wes Streeting outlined a new Health Plan, which proposes far fewer staff for the NHS than even under the Conservatives’ plan. We are launching an urgent petition calling on the new Health Secretary, James Murray to oppose the new plan

On Tuesday 19th May, the Financial Times (FT) reported that outgoing Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s parting gift to the NHS was to be outlined in a new Health Plan. The FT expected the plan, still being finalised, to be published in the coming weeks.

Streeting has proposed hundreds of thousands fewer staff for the NHS than even planned by his predecessors, the Conservatives. This involves using Artificial Intelligence to help treat patients, replacing the role of staff, meaning the NHS would be able to ‘get by’ with far fewer staff. The new Health Secretary hasn’t yet given a solid indication as to whether he will go ahead with Streeting’s plans, with the proposal expected to be published in the coming weeks.

In the misguided pursuit of expanding AI into the clinical sphere at the expense of trained staff (without evidence-based research to back it up), the new direction of travel is to, in some cases, “completely substitute for a role” by using new technologies – presumably therefore minimising the cost of employing real humans. This is especially concerning: while technology can play a useful supporting role within healthcare, it shouldn’t become an excuse for cutting staff numbers. The crucial, human, element of caring for patients appears to have been completely sidestepped.

There are also major unanswered questions about how patient data would be gathered, shared and used to power these systems. The new Health Bill puts a single electronic patient record (EPR) in the hands of Palantir’s data platform. Many campaigners have already raised serious concerns about NHS data deals involving companies such as Palantir Technologies. The expansion of AI within the NHS will mean access to vast quantities of sensitive patient information, yet there seem to be no risk assessments or realistic costings of this plan.

The Financial Times says:

“[The] draft drawn up by the current government promises a “fundamentally different approach”, arguing that a 50 per cent increase in doctors in the NHS over the past decade “has not led to better access, experience or outcomes for citizens” and instead has seen productivity fall.”

There are reasons why staff productivity has fallen – and due in large part to burnout and the devastating effects of the Covid pandemic, especially now that all support offered to staff has been withdrawn, despite there being no let-up in NHS overwhelm for at least the last six years.

Instead of assuming that increasing doctor numbers will not help, the focus should be less on AI and more on supporting the human workforce through affordable, but effective, human interventions. This would necessarily mean improving staff retention, stopping job cuts, helping Resident Doctors find work, and so on.

Also worrying from this Health Plan is the proposal that staff will be financially incentivised to use new technology, and that clinical staff will have the option to exchange some of their pension contributions for higher pay – strongly hinting that there are no plans afoot to instead properly remunerate staff in the face of prolonged industrial action. Incentivising staff to use new AI technology is ironic, given that Keep Our NHS Public has heard from NHS staff working with computers that contain missing keys, take ten minutes to load and frequently crash during key moments.

The hope for many NHS staff is that their working conditions are dramatically improved, including staffing requirements being met. Any new Health Secretary must be able to understand the difficulties faced by NHS staff and the service they work for, rather than attempting to impose reforms or initiatives that are completely at odds with the working realities staff are facing.

We hope that James Murray is able to recognise this and stop this new plan before it is able to do any serious damage.