Fit for the future: medicine’s new frontier
Innovation and the NHS
Why does the NHS need to change? Increased pressure The waiting list for hospital treatment has risen by 46% over five years. The number of beds available overnight in NHS hospitals has fallen by 11,220 (8.1%) since 2011. In the past 12 months, 834 overnight beds have been lost. The waiting list for consultant-led treatment
Talking cures
While much is talked about the power of robotics or software systems to revolutionise healthcare, ideas around speech recognition have for far too long focused solely on its use for dictation. Now experts are testing the same technology that gives us Alexa and Siri to see what could be achieved in the GP surgery, operating
The DNA revolution
You’ve secured an audience with your overworked GP. You roll into the surgery clearly suffering from the effects of a gargantuan hangover, reeking of fresh cigarette smoke and chomping on a fistful of cheese sticks. After listening to your laboured heartbeat, ascertaining your blood pressure is off the charts and checking how overweight you are,
A brave new world: AI-driven approach to diagnostics
Sponsored by The NHS is one of the UK’s most cardinal institutions. It is also combating unprecedented pressures of managing ever-increasing demand with severely limited resources. People are living longer. Chronic and lifestyle-related diseases are on the rise. Trusts and hospitals are operating with a national staffing shortfall of 100,000 doctors, nurses and specialists —
A dose of AI
Perhaps in common with many people who don’t work in pharmaceuticals, I vaguely imagined that the industry found much of its inspiration from nature. Scientists might start with an old wives’ tale that, say, cowslips cure genital warts, and then work towards medicalising it — searching for an active ingredient which can then be synthesised,
What digitisation can do for us
Safeguarding the future of the NHS is no easy task. With greater financial pressures and an ageing population, assessing how the health service is equipped to navigate the challenges it faces continues to be a subject of intense scrutiny. Digital technology holds the key to overcoming many of these hurdles, and has the potential to
The future of healthcare
Last year, the NHS celebrated its 70th birthday. Healthcare has changed enormously in those seven decades, and no one knows what the next 70 years will hold. But all the signs are that it will have undergone another huge change, as technologies are invented that enable doctors to treat patients in completely different ways. This