'Alexa, what are the early signs of a stroke?' GPs may no longer be the first port of call for patients looking to understand their ailments. 'Dr Google' is already well established in patients' minds, and now they have a host of apps using artificial intelligence (AI), allowing them to input symptoms and receive a suggested diagnosis or advice without the need for human interaction. And policymakers are on board. Matt Hancock is the most tech-friendly health secretary ever, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens wants England to lead the world in AI, and the prime minister last month announced £250m for a national AI lab to help cut waiting times and detect diseases earlier. Amazon even agreed a partnership with NHS England in July to allow people to access health information via its voice-activated assistant Alexa.

Covid-19 has caused an unprecedented amount of uncertainty across the world, with businesses and people alike feeling the strain. However, amidst all of this uncertainty, one thing has remained constant and that is the unwavering efforts of those on the NHS frontline. While we have passed the peak of the pandemic in the UK, we must not forget the immense strain which the NHS has been put under. It is a testament to all of those working within the service that it has remained firm, saving countless lives in the process. Moving forwards, though, we must find a way to ease the burden on NHS workers.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - 2019/12/10: A London ambulance parked outside the East London hospital. In London, the National Health Service's 111 helpline receives up to 41,000 urgent calls every week. With this number constantly growing, health and clinical advisors must provide advice to patients with potentially serious medical conditions accurately and quickly. However, NHS 111 London has previously struggled to deliver a consistent patient experience and meet healthcare outcomes because it lacked a way to track and prioritize patients with developing or known medical conditions. Martin Taylor, deputy CEO and cofounder of cloud contact center platform Content Guru, says: "Patients were routed to any available call handler, and this varied each time they called NHS 111 (regardless of the time between calls), leading to patients having to repeat their details, symptoms, and developments. "Further to this, the NHS were unable to track repeat callers and therefore could not monitor changes in symptoms effectively.

Imagine being able to check your health score like you might check you credit rating – that's the aim of a pioneering AI trial that wants to work out the likelihood of a patient being admitted to hospital. The pilot project is being run by Bering Research and GPs at Axbridge Surgery in Somerset. The project uses an algorithm in Bering's Brave AI system to analyse the complexity of patient health, to predict which patients might be at risk of needing to be admitted to hospital, and to help GPs to work to get that risk reduced. The AI tool presents its analysis in the form of a complexity score that is based on a percentage scale. The score is related to underlying health conditions and a range of contributory factors, such as high blood pressure or a history of smoking.

'Alexa, what are the early signs of a stroke?' GPs may no longer be the first port of call for patients looking to understand their ailments. 'Dr Google' is already well established in patients' minds, and now they have a host of apps using artificial intelligence (AI), allowing them to input symptoms and receive a suggested diagnosis or advice without the need for human interaction. And policymakers are on board. Matt Hancock is the most tech-friendly health secretary ever, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens wants England to lead the world in AI, and the prime minister last month announced £250m for a national AI lab to help cut waiting times and detect diseases earlier. Amazon even agreed a partnership with NHS England in July to allow people to access health information via its voice-activated assistant Alexa.

Robots will become more accurate and quicker at spotting illnesses than doctors in the near future, experts claim. Software which already exists and decides if a patient needs urgent medical attention in just two minutes could spell the end of the GP. Developed by Babylon Health, it is now hoping to roll the concept of chat-bots for NHS 111 helplines out nationwide. The programme also tells patients which specific service to visit, as close to their home as possible. People suffering from an illness are asked to type in their symptoms and the app responds with further questions.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the British Medical Association's GP committee, said the system could add to pressures on hospitals, rather than reduce them. "Owing to the lack of input from a trained professional, this simplistic system could, like NHS 111, result in more people being sent to overstretched GP or A&E services who don't actually need treatment - or conversely serious conditions being missed," he said. Peter Walsh, chief executive of safety campaign group Action Against Medical Accidents, questioned who would be liable if computer error caused patient harm or death. "The NHS 111 algorthym has already proved prone to error - that risk could be even greater under a system like this," he said, calling for robust evaluation of the six-month scheme. Katherine Murphy, from the Patients Association, said: "The stakes here are very high, I would be concerned about the risks to patient safety; this needs to be very carefully evaluated because of the risks of misdiagnosis."

The UK's National Health Service will soon begin a trial testing whether or not a chatbot can effectively replace a call center for non-emergency medical triage, according to a report from the Financial Times. Babylon, a UK-based telemedicine startup, will power the six-month trial in north-central London, which will include 1.2 million covered citizens. Babylon is a major telemedicine provider in its native England. The company's direct-to-consumer offering starts with an AI-powered chatbot which can escalate up to a video visit if necessary. Triage via Babylon requires about 12 text messages and takes about a minute and a half.

Image: Doctors were significantly better at diagnosing conditions correctly when compared to a computer algorithms, an American research trial found. Doctors "vastly outperformed" computer algorithms when it comes to giving a correct diagnosis, according to an American research trial. In the investigation, 234 physicians correctly diagnosed patients 72% of the time, in comparison to the symptom checker app, Human Dx, which only managed to score 34%. Published earlier this month in'JAMA Internal Medicine', the study stated that it is thought to be the first direct comparison of diagnostic accuracy. Human Dx, is a web and app based platform on which clinicians can produce different outcomes for clinical case studies.