Ministers pin hopes on disease-spotting AI to slash ambulance waits and Covid backlog

Ministers are pinning their hopes on reducing ambulance wait times and reducing the Covid backlog of disease-detection robots, The Sun can reveal.

Steve Barclay will this week greenlight a new multi-million dollar AI package that they hope will speed up the diagnosis of diseases like stroke and ultimately save lives.

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Additional funding will go to new technologies that can spot potential illnesses faster than humans – saving valuable time for millions of sick Brits.

Successful technologies are being rolled out quickly across the NHS to speed up diagnosis, reduce waiting lists and unburden doctors.

Researchers from Denmark have recently developed a cutting-edge new tool that can outperform human callers and make an accurate diagnosis over the phone.

Skin cancer and breast cancer are two areas already benefiting from AI checks, which are better at spotting abnormalities than humans.

They also hope this new technology can reduce the huge Covid backlog.

The government is already investing £54m in university research to develop more new AI technologies.

£16million will go towards funding to speed up research into cancer screening, diagnosing rare diseases and identifying women at highest risk of preterm birth.

Rishi Sunak was interested in Britain becoming a world leader in AI and how it can be used for good, despite fears it could take over the world and make thousands of jobs redundant.