UK minister urges use of NHS data to support AI drug research

In short: UK science minister Chris McDonald says Britain should use NHS health records to help develop medicines with AI, while protecting public trust.

What happened

Chris McDonald, the UK’s science minister, said Britain should “exploit” the large set of health data held by the NHS to boost AI-driven work in the drug industry. He spoke at the FT Global Pharma and Biotech Summit in London.

McDonald said the UK has an advantage because the NHS has decades of patient records that track health over time. This kind of “longitudinal dataset” means data that follows people across years, like a long diary of health events. He argued that combining that with the UK’s AI industry could attract more investment into life sciences.

He also said the government must keep the public’s “trust and confidence” in the NHS while doing this. He pointed to concerns about Palantir’s role in the NHS and to a recent incident where patient data from the UK Biobank was reportedly offered for sale. McDonald said the answer is strong rules and checks, and he noted ministers pushed UK Biobank to suspend access after that incident.

The Financial Times also reported that Palantir’s NHS contract is expected to be extended for two years while the government runs a new buying process with more focus on UK tech control.

Why it matters

NHS data can help researchers spot patterns and test ideas faster, which could speed up the early stages of finding new treatments (like using a very large library to quickly look up clues). But if people feel their health information is being used in ways they did not agree to, they may lose trust, and that could limit what the NHS and researchers can do.

Source: Financial Times