Government announces AI Action Plan including health data library

  • 14 January 2025
Government announces AI Action Plan including health data library
Sir Keir Starmer ©House of Commons
  • Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has unveiled details of the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan
  • It includes the creation of a National Data Library to support AI development
  • Technology companies – Vantage Data Centres, Nscale and Kyndryl – have committed to £14bn investment in the UK to build the AI infrastructure the UK needs

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has unveiled details of the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, which includes a national data library planned to unlock the value of public data and support AI development.

In a speech on 13 January 2025, Starmer confirmed that the government will take forward all 50 recommendations made by Matt Clifford, AI advisor to the government, in the AI Opportunities Action Plan.

Starmer said that the plan would “make our country an AI superpower”.

“This is a unique chance to boost growth, raise living standards, transform public services, create the companies of the future in Britain and deliver our Plan for Change,” he said.

Among the recommendations are proposals for the UK to invest in a supercomputer to boost computing power and a national data library to gather data held by the public sector, including anonymised health data, to support AI research and innovation.

When questioned by journalists about whether private firms would be able to access this health data for commercial use, Starmer responded that it is “important we keep control of that data”, but added that he does not think “we should have a defensive approach” to its use.

In a government press release, Peter Kyle, science, innovation and technology secretary, said: “AI has the potential to change all of our lives but for too long, we have been curious and often cautious bystanders to the change unfolding around us. With this plan, we become agents of that change.

“We already have remarkable strengths we can tap into when it comes to AI – building our status as the cradle of computer science and intelligent machines and establishing ourselves as the third largest AI market in the world.”

The plan aims to forge several “AI growth zones” around the UK, starting with Culham in Oxfordshire, meaning than an AI business can set itself up in one of these zones and benefit from faster planning processes.

Technology companies Vantage Data Centres, Nscale and Kyndryl, have committed to £14bn investment in the UK to build the AI infrastructure the UK needs to harness the potential of AI and deliver 13,250 jobs across the UK.

Commenting on the AI Opportunities Action Plan, Brigitte West, product director at DrDoctor, said: “This is much-needed recognition that AI can be used for operational reasons – so that clinical staff can spend less time on admin and more time delivering care.

 “The best AI solutions solve real world problems and are targeted, built and modelled with purpose. This is why we need to be realistic with the use cases and consider how AI products work in practice.

“Some of the biggest benefits we’re seeing at the moment are from applying AI to improve operational efficiencies at scale and help make healthcare team’s workflows much more effective.”

Meanwhile, in December 2024, the NHS England announced that it is using AI  to predict patients who are at risk of becoming frequent users of emergency services, so staff can get them more appropriate care sooner.

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1 Comments

  • This country has a vast amount of excellent anon’d health data (and should exploit that for public good) but in the domain of modern AI, the UK cannot compete with the capital spending of MS, Google, or AWS. We need to partner with the big AI players.

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