New analysis suggests better use of AI in triage and navigation services through the GP could free up 29 million appointments each year, and deliver immediate productivity gains worth £340 million a year for call handlers and receptionists in 111 and General Practice alone.
AI Navigation Assistants can help to navigate patients in a safer, faster and more efficient way, ensuring that they are directed to the appropriate healthcare setting the first time.
The NHS should commit to an AI Navigation Assistant for every citizen in England to expand access to new digital paths to care and treatment.
A new report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) argues that the impact of AI in triage and navigation services could be transformational, improving safety and convenience for patients, increasing NHS productivity and reducing waiting times across the NHS, without the need to expand the workforce.
Current navigation routes – such as 111/999 and GP practices – provide generic advice as a result of using decision-tree models or relying on untrained receptionists or call handlers, have labour intensive processes which increases wait times, and are reactive and difficult to change. Inconsistent navigation tools across primary and urgent and emergency care causes duplication, delays, increased workload, and poor patient experiences, including repeated assessments. Patient data is siloed, and information on services like community care and digital tools is limited. As a result, patients are often bounced around the system or receive unnecessary appointments.1
This new report argues that implementing AI across the entire system could overcome many of these issues by performing one simple function – finding where you need to go within the health system. It would do this by streamlining the end-to-end navigation process, and with better use of data to assess and prioritise patients. This would mean that however a patient interacts with the health system, an AI assistant would be able to process the information it receives and ensure the patient is directed to the appropriate care setting straight away. For example, this could be patients being self-directed through the NHS App, or call handlers using an AI tool. There are already international examples of this successfully working such as Infermedica which assesses patient symptoms by using a probability-based AI tool to understand the level of urgency and the type of care required. The tool is used by Healthdirect, Australia’s national health-advice service.
TBI’s analysis suggests that the better use of AI in navigation services could free up 29 million GP appointments each year by reducing unnecessary appointments, and lead to immediate productivity gains for GP receptionists and NHS 111 call handlers worth £340 million a year. The estimated time savings are expected to be worth up to 41 per cent of working time for 111 call handlers and 30 per cent for GP receptionists. This would have a knock-on effect of improving the quality and speed of navigation services, and easing demand pressures on other NHS services, such as A&E where many people go as a result of being unable to access the right advice or healthcare setting.
TBI recommends that DHSC commits to an AI Navigation Assistant for every citizen in England. This navigation assistant should inform decisions across all entry points to navigation in the NHS, aiding call handlers, clinicians and receptionists via 111, 999 and in General Practice. It should also be accessed directly by patients via the NHS App as part of the digital health record, which previous TBI research shows2 are critical to changing the operating model of the NHS.
TBI Director for Health Policy, Dr Charlotte Refsum, said:
“Current triage and navigation systems aren’t fit for purpose – patients are bounced around healthcare settings, unable to access the service they need when they need it and get stuck in repetitive cycles as the systems aren’t joined up.
“With the NHS facing rising demand and ambitious productivity targets, it must look for credible ways to improve services. AI has the power to revolutionise how patients navigate the NHS, ensuring they receive the right care at the right time.
“For a government committed to reducing NHS strain, transforming the model of patient navigation is not just an option, it's a necessity. We need a new, radical model of navigation, enabled and improved by AI.”