NHS to Use AI Technology to Free Up Hospital Beds and Improve Patient Care

The NHS is piloting cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to help free up hospital beds currently occupied by patients who are fit to be discharged, officials have announced.

The innovative platform, currently being trialled at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust, uses AI to streamline the patient discharge process by automating the completion of essential paperwork. By extracting key information such as diagnoses and test results from medical records, the system helps healthcare staff draft discharge summaries more efficiently, potentially saving hours of delays.

Once generated, the discharge document is reviewed by the relevant healthcare professionals, enabling patients to be sent home promptly or referred to other services as needed.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting described the platform as “potentially transformational,” highlighting that it allows doctors to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on patient care, while also reducing waiting times across the NHS.

“This discharge tool is a prime example of how we are shifting from analogue to digital as part of our 10-year health plan,” said Mr Streeting. “We are using cutting-edge technology to build an NHS fit for the future and tackle the hospital backlogs that have left too many people waiting too long.”

The AI platform will be hosted on the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), a shared digital infrastructure designed to enable seamless collaboration across health and care organisations and improve service delivery. The current manual discharge system can leave patients waiting for hours, as doctors are often occupied with other critical duties.

This initiative forms part of a broader programme of AI-powered projects supported by the government, including tools designed to reduce administrative workloads in probation services and public consultations, saving significant staffing costs.