In one of the largest experiments of its kind, an artificial intelligence model is being trained on anonymized data from 57 million NHS patients to forecast future health needs—before they happen.
Led by teams at King’s College London and UCL, this bold new project feeds AI with de-identified medical histories from nearly the entire population of England, stripping away personal information while preserving crucial patterns in disease, diagnosis, and care.
The goal? Spot high-risk individuals earlier, deliver interventions faster, and potentially prevent serious illnesses before symptoms even appear. That includes everything from mental health crises to heart attacks—even conditions like cancer.
"This is population-scale data with clinical-level precision,” say the researchers. “It’s a leap toward truly proactive medicine.”
And because the model doesn’t store names or identifiers, it skirts privacy landmines while tapping into the biggest pool of real-world medical data ever used for this kind of AI training.
The implications are staggering: fewer emergency admissions, lower costs, longer lives. If successful, this model could become the central nervous system of a smarter, faster NHS.