The June 2025 briefing to Wes Streeting (2nd left) was released under the Freedom of Information Act. The June 2025 briefing to Wes Streeting (2nd left) was released under the Freedom of Information Act. NHS deal with AI firm Palantir called into question after officials' concerns revealed Health officials fear Palantir's reputation will hinder the delivery of a "vital" £330m NHS contract, according to briefings seen by the Guardian, sparking fresh calls for the deal to be scrapped. In 2023, ministers selected Palantir, a US surveillance technology company that also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump's ICE operation, to build an AI-enabled data platform to connect disparate health information across the NHS . Now it has emerged that after Keir Starmer demanded faster deployment, Whitehall officials privately warned that the public perception of Palantir would limit its rollout, meaning the contract would not offer value for money.

Men with suspected prostate cancer will be able to get a diagnosis from the NHS within a day, under a new trial hailed as a potential game changer for identifying and treating the disease. The 15 hospitals taking part will use AI technology to interpret MRI scans and spot areas of abnormal tissue within minutes, according to NHS England. Scans showing a high-cancer risk will be triaged as priority review for a radiologist and patients will be booked for a same-day biopsy. Around one in eight men will develop prostate cancer in their lives, according to Prostate Cancer UK, with research showing it has overtaken breast cancer as the most commonly diagnosed form of the disease in the UK. But unlike breast cancer, there is currently no national screening programme for prostate cancer.

After losing nearly six stone since December with the help of weight-loss injections, Emilly Murray has been left with an unwanted reminder of her former body - loose skin. I can't wear what I want to wear, says the 35-year-old from Liverpool. I cannot get my legs out because the skin hangs over my knee so much. While she doesn't regret losing weight for the benefit of her health, Emilly says the loose skin on her thighs really does get me down as it makes her feel self-conscious, and the way she looks naked makes her feel like a catfish. It looks okay when it's all pulled in, but then I feel like, when I take my clothes off, I look like a 90-year-old woman.

An artificial intelligence tool designed to speed up the discharge of patients is being trialled at a hospital trust in London. The platform completes documents needed to send fit patients home, potentially saving hours of delays and freeing up beds. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said the tech will enable doctors to spend less time on paperwork and more time focused on care, cutting waiting times in the process. The platform, which is being piloted at Chelsea and Westminster NHS trust, extracts information from medical records, including diagnoses and test results. This helps medics to draft discharge summaries, which have to be completed before a person is sent home from hospital.

"We've seen around a 50% reduction in patients not attending for appointments," and the number of women accepting an invitation to have a routine breast screening appointment has risen "from 43% to just under 80% over the three years," she says. The centre, which offers a range of health checks and scans, was opened in 2022 under the last Conservative government. The current Labour government says many more services will now move out of hospital into the community. In Barnsley, that is already happening. Part of another shopping centre is being converted into a second, large health hub.

Meta's push to deploy its artificial intelligence system inside Britain's public sector has taken a step forward after the tech giant awarded development funding to technology aimed at shortening NHS A&E waiting times. Amid rival efforts by Silicon Valley tech companies to work with national and local government, Meta ran its first "hackathon" in Europe asking more than 200 programmers to devise ways to use its Llama AI system in UK public services and, one senior Meta executive said, "focused on the priorities of the Labour party". The event came after it emerged that Palantir, another US tech company, has been lobbying the Ministry of Justice and government ministers including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Microsoft also recently agreed a five-year deal with Whitehall departments to supply its AI Copilot technology to civil servants. Meta's hackathon was addressed by Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister and now Meta's president of global affairs based in California.

In the 2016 movie Passengers, the crew of a spacecraft bound for a distant planet had access to a scanning chamber known as Autodoc that could instantly diagnose their medical problems and even predict the time of their death. I'm reminded of this, and countless other sci-fi plots, as I strip off my robe and step semi-naked into the gleaming capsule of the Neko Body Scan. Like Autodoc, it promises to conduct a comprehensive examination of my health – inside and out – within minutes, and, while unable to estimate the timing of my demise (yet), it can identify whether I'm at imminent or future risk of developing some of the biggest killers and causes of chronic ill health. Healthy as I may feel on the outside, the prospect of learning whether there is some hidden nastiness lurking on my health horizon, feels too tempting to refuse. The doors of the pod slide shut, and a soothing female voice instructs me to close my eyes and keep still.

AI will listen in to doctors' appointments and automatically generate patient notes in a bid to improve productivity in the NHS. Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said the plans will cut the time medics spend on admin so they are free to see more patients. But privacy campaigners today described the move as'creepy', while patient groups warned people could come to harm as they will be too embarrassed to discuss medical issues freely while being recorded. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt yesterday announced a 3.4billion investment in NHS productivity through things such as expanding the use of AI, reducing paperwork for medics and improving access for patients. In a major keynote speech at the Nuffield Trust think tank's annual summit, Ms Atkins today said the'enormous amount of money' would be transformative.

More than 150,000 adults and children with type 1 diabetes are now eligible to get an'artificial pancreas'. NHS regulators have today approved hybrid closed-loop system technology, which experts say is the'biggest breakthrough since insulin'. The high-tech device continuously tracks blood sugar levels through a sensor stuck to the body. Readings are fed straight back to a body-worn insulin pump, with an algorithm then calculating how much of the hormone needs to be released. An artificial pancreas to manage type 1 diabetes could soon be offered to NHS patients after a major trial produced'blisteringly brilliant' early results.

Kara Frederick, tech director at the Heritage Foundation, discusses the need for regulations on artificial intelligence as lawmakers and tech titans discuss the potential risks. Robots run by artificial intelligence have the potential to attack the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) and cause a disruption on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a cybersecurity expert. Ian Hogarth, who works on the U.K.'s AI task force that was formed to help protect against the risks of AI, says that the growing technology is capable of an attack that could cripple the country's NHS or even carry out a "biological attack," according to a report in the Daily Star. Hogarth noted that AI technology continues to improve at a rapid pace, something he warned would lower barriers to "perpetrating some kind of cyber attack or cyber crime." A photo shows a sign of the London Ambulance Service of NHS in London.