How AI is helping Wexham Park and Heatherwood Hospital's cancer patients

Cancer patients at Wexham Park Hospital and Heatherwood Hospital are receiving faster diagnosis and treatment thanks to award-winning AI innovations. 

Medics at the Slough and Ascot hospitals are at the forefront of NHS AI use - using tech to tackle a ‘tsunami’ of work and helping cancer patients get access to the right care. 

An AI team at NHS Frimley Health Foundation Trust – which runs Wexham Park and Heatherwood – has received an NHS Award for Excellence for the success of its tech rollout.  

Consultant radiologist Dr Amrita Kumar, leader of the AI Working Group, discussed the trust’s use of AI and how it was helping.

She said: “[AI is helping] so the patient isn’t waiting three months to be told if there is something suspicious and then go on to have a biopsy and CT scans – they’ll be told almost straight away,” she said.

A consultant radiologist is a doctor who analyses scans taken by a radiographer. Consultants are among the most experienced and qualified people in the profession.

When a chest X-ray – the simplest scan to test for lung cancer - is performed at Wexham Park or Heatherwood, it gets uploaded to an online database where it is then reviewed by the AI.

Consultant radiologists can be expected to review upwards of 50 X-ray scans an hour - but an AI can review them in seconds.

It looks for X-rays that could have evidence of cancer and files them in order of priority for further review by a human radiologist.

This speeds up triaging for patients, frees up time for consultant radiologists, and – in the long run – could help NHS trust’s save money.

Dr Kumar said: “The consultant can read the abnormal scans first and then get through the normal pile accordingly.

“It just means you are prioritising any abnormal or suspected abnormal scans – when you have a huge backlog.

“It eases the pressure because it’s the abnormals that require further management faster acknowledgment faster referral to the cancer pathways.”

NHS Frimley’s AI has a high success rate for detecting problem scans but UK healthcare law means it must have a human check its work - to provide a safeguard.

Dr Kumar also discussed whether AI use at Wexham Park and Heatherwood could come at the expense of jobs.

Dr Kumar said AI was helping under pressure consultant radiologists amid a nationwide shortage in the profession.

“It’s hopefully helping the burnout that’s affecting consultant radiologists on the whole,” she said.

“The work is just like a tsunami coming at you every single day because there’s not enough of you to look after all the work.

“The population is ageing, the diseases are becoming more common at a younger age and there are more complex diseases that are happening.

Dr Kumar said other NHS trusts in the UK were seeking advice from NHS Frimley Health on how they could use AI to support services.

But she said publishing data on NHS Frimley’s AI use ‘is the next bit of excitement’.

Dr Kumar said: “Once we’ve shown the added value of the AI the system and all the safety nets we can put it - then we can just pick it up and put it into other clinical pathways.”