Greater use of AI could provide an extra 3.7 million GP appointments each week within 10 years, according to a report commissioned by Google.
Artificial intelligence could ‘revolutionise the public sector’ and save £38bn a year by 2030 across the UK’s public services, including the NHS, according to the online tech giant.
The report recognised the current pressures on GP services and estimated that a more widespread use of AI could generate 3.7 million additional appointments every week, as well as improvements in other public services.
The research found that AI could be used by medical practitioners to ‘automate basic processes’, with 33.6% of daily work ‘freed up by AI’ in the process, as generative AI could replicate ‘standard’ management tasks such as delivering training, staff management and research.
It also mentioned future examples and uses of AI tools to ‘extract information’ from patient records, and that an AI-augmented NHS could provide ‘bespoke’ preventative healthcare plans and prescribe for common ailments, ‘minimising the day-to-day costs of healthcare as patients only require human doctors for scientific analysis and the treatment of complex conditions’.
The findings were based on a survey of 415 public sector workers in the UK, which suggested that automation and generative AI ‘hold significant potential for boosting public sector productivity’.
The document, prepared by consultancy Public First for Google Cloud, said: ‘These estimates represent the quality improvements available when generative AI has been fully adopted across the public sector.
‘We model a 10-year adoption period from present day for this technology which will require the public sector to adopt AI tools and systems rapidly over the next Parliament, and overcome its current lag in adoption relative to the private sector.
‘We estimate that this expeditious adoption could create a cumulative value of up to £358bn for the public sector by 2034.’
Responding to the report’s finding, technology secretary Peter Kyle said that his department is testing how the Government can put AI to work in the public sector.
He said: ‘These findings are a powerful reminder of how generative AI can be revolutionary for government services.
‘Today we have an opportunity to drive forward public service reform by empowering citizens with the information and tools they need to make better choices and hold services to account.’
Estimated gains from generative AI adoption according to the Google report
- 3.7 million additional GP appointments each week
- 16% increase in the ratio of teachers to students
- 164,000 equivalent additional police officers to engage in incident response
Source: Public First
Another report published today also argued that general practice could benefit from further integrating AI and automation into its workstreams.
The report by the Social Market Foundation said that improving access to GP appointments is ‘the most visible area’ where automation can deliver improvements.
It specifically argued AI could help with triage, claiming that 320 million out of England’s roughly 350 million annual GP appointments could ‘potentially be automatically allocated without staff intervention’, if results from trials were scaled up.
According to the think tank, GP practices trialling AI-powered triaging systems have been able to achieve a 73% reduction in patient waiting times for appointments and a 47% reduction in calls at peak hours.
It added: ‘There is evidence of real potential for automation to assist in managing the caseload for GP practices and alleviating the “8am rush”.
‘The Groves Medical Centre, a GP practice based in Surrey and South West London, was able to achieve a 73% reduction in patient waiting times for prebookable appointments, from 11 to 3 days, using an AI-based triaging system.
‘Alongside this, the practice reduced the 8am rush significantly: there were 47% fewer phone calls at peak hours, with 91% of appointments overall able to be automatically allocated without staff or clinical intervention. The new system led to considerably less reliance on phone lines as well: only 18% of patient requests were initiated by phone after the intervention, compared to 88% before.’
The authors argued that if the results of this trial were scaled up, it would mean that patient contacts using phones could in future be as low as 14%.
‘Out of the roughly 350 million GP patient contacts seen in the latest year, more than 320 million of these could be automatically allocated without staff intervention,’ they added.
‘Operational efficiencies on this scale would save GP practices considerable time and resource, all but eliminating the infamous 8am rush to get appointments.’
It comes as data science academic, Dr Russell Hunter shared the top trends healthcare leaders need to know about as they navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI and machine learning.
A version of this story was first published on our sister title Pulse.
