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Department of Health and Social Care: Artificial Intelligence

Asked by Sir John HayesConservativeDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled Answered 22 January 2025UIN 23263

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what purposes (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department have used AI in the last 12 months.

Answered by Karin Smyth

The Department of Health and Social Care does not hold a record of all uses of artificial intelligence by officials and ministers.

The Department of Health and Social Care has focused on establishing the enablers for adopting artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly; more specifically, implementing governance and delivery structures that pool internal experts from across the department and drawing on a range of resources, published on GOV.UK, to inform our AI and data usage. For example: the Generative AI Framework; the Data Maturity Assessment; the Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework; the Data Ethics Framework; and the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard. The Department also has access to the Central Digital & Data Office, based in the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, for expert advice.

The Department of Health and Social Care does not currently have any plans to implement automated decision-making systems, people remain in full control of decision-making with AI augmenting their work.

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