NHS Grampian Paves Way for Using AI in Lung Cancer Care Across Scotland

That the Parliament welcomes the news that NHS Grampian is trialling a process through the use of Annalise CXR software that could be embedded into lung cancer care across Scotland; notes that, following the success of NHS Grampian Innovation Hub’s GRACE project to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the detection of lung cancer, NHS Grampian, alongside the Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) Pathway team, has seen diagnostic care for lung cancer improve across the Grampian area thanks to the use of innovative AI technology that scans x-ray images for more than 120 potential issues, with the team building on these results to help inform the roll-out of AI in other areas; understands that, while all chest x-ray images continue to be manually assessed by radiologists, the use of Annalise CXR software highlights images that may show signs of lung cancer so that they can be reviewed more urgently; notes that NHS Grampian analyses about 300 chest x-rays per day, with the number of referrals for urgent suspected cancer having increased by about 50% in the last five years in Grampian across all specialities; recognises that, if used in the right way, AI can help assist NHS boards while still maintaining a need for checks to be carried out; understands that the software was first introduced across 13 sites as part of NHS Grampian’s Innovation Hub’s GRACE project in 2022, to evaluate the use of AI in radiology departments, and that it was the first time that the Annalise CXR algorithm had been used by a UK health board, and that it continues to be a huge success; believes that, through the GRACE project, NHS Grampian is finding 12% more treatable cancers, meaning that they are being caught earlier, and that getting 95% of people through to treatment is taking 30 fewer days, and commends the work carried out by NHS Grampian in trialling what it sees as this transformative process, which can help to detect lung cancer that may have otherwise been unknown.