Health regulators and the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care have called for the safe, effective, and ethical use of AI by health and social care professionals.
The statement from the PSA, 10 health and social care professional regulators, and the Accredited Registers Collaborative (which represents 28 Accredited Registers) is aimed at achieving greater consistency across the regulatory landscape to build confidence in how AI is used, and includes a commitment by the organisations in question to jointly develop a set of high-level principles to guide how they will regulate the use of AI by health and social care professionals across the UK.
The statement follows the recent recommendations published by the National Commission into the Regulation of AI in Healthcare, which are aimed at creating a regulatory framework that is safe, fast, and trusted, as well as indicating how the UK’s regulatory framework should evolve as AI becomes increasingly developed and used across health and social care. The Commission highlighted that managing AI is a shared responsibility and that health and social care professionals have their part to play.
PSA chair Caroline Corby said: “As AI becomes increasingly embedded in health and care, regulation must keep pace. Effective regulation can't be developed in isolation, and the Commission's report rightly recognises the need for coordination across the regulatory landscape. Through our work convening health and care professional regulators and Accredited Registers on AI, the PSA has seen first-hand the value of collaboration and shared learning. Confidence by the public and professionals in the benefits of AI rests on appropriate safeguards, accountability, and consistency in expectations about how it is used. By working together, we can take a preventative approach to regulation that supports innovation while maintaining professional standards.”