Health
NHS workforce plan is “too reliant” on AI and should be paused, doctors warn
Key Points
Doctors and health unions have urged the government to halt the development of the highly anticipated NHS workforce plan, warning that it is overly reliant on assumptions that AI will be a “silver bullet. concerns have been raised in an open letter to the new health and social care secretary, James Murray, signed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), Royal College of Nursing, BMA, Society for Acute Medicine, Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing, and the union Unite. The NHS...
Doctors and health unions have urged the government to halt the development of the highly anticipated NHS workforce plan, warning that it is overly reliant on assumptions that AI will be a “silver bullet.”The concerns have been raised in an open letter to the new health and social care secretary, James Murray, signed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), Royal College of Nursing, BMA, Society for Acute Medicine, Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing, and the union Unite.The NHS workforce plan is expected to be published this month. But the six organisations said there had been little engagement with doctors and nurses over what it includes and warned that it currently fails to recognise the realities on the NHS frontline.RCEM president Ian Higginson said that “from what little we have seen” the plan is “built on untested assumptions about productivity and efficiency.”He said, “The plan seems to be heavily...