Proximie’s Founder and CEO, Dr Nadine Hachach-Haram, reflects on the UK Government’s plans to help cut NHS waiting lists.
As a surgeon within the NHS and a founder of a technology platform dedicated to democratising access to safe, timely and affordable surgery, I welcome the government’s commitment to tackling the pressing challenge of NHS waiting lists. Ultimately, the status quo won't do. Healthcare systems around the world need to do more with less, so disruption is inevitable and needed.
Technology that is harnessing the best of AI to augment teams by driving new levels of efficiency and productivity have a fundamental role to play in driving these waiting list figures down. We are past the novel phase of these technologies and its imperative, as per the Prime Minister’s words earlier in the week, that the NHS invests in the technology that can make a tangible difference right now.
People, not numbers.
Importantly, the growing backlog in the UK represents not just statistics. We are dealing with real people, real patients, real families. People that are waiting in pain, uncertainty, and sometimes danger to their lives. In my experience those working within the NHS feel this more acutely than anyone. We see it everyday and I continue to see the very best of the NHS when my colleagues are able to treat their patients on the frontline of care. But we are talking about the people that are not being seen and that has to change.
“...the growing backlog in the UK represents not just statistics. We are dealing with real people, real patients, real families.”
Technology that augments human-centred healthcare delivery is imperative to alleviating the backlog.
To address the issues outlined by the Prime Minister sustainably, we must further embrace and invest in technology that is enhancing efficiency and outcomes across the patient treatment pathway. The technology that is helping to augment, inform and scale hardworking and talented teams across the NHS. Much of the plan mentioned by the Prime Minister is about building on work that is already under way across the NHS, for example the opening of more surgical and diagnostic hubs, making patient choice easier and reducing unnecessary appointments.
“To address the issues outlined by the Prime Minister sustainably, we must further embrace and invest in technology that is enhancing efficiency and outcomes across the patient treatment pathway.”
Although much of the Prime Minister’s focus was on shifting care away from hospitals and into the community, encouragingly we are also already seeing how AI can revolutionise surgical care within NHS hospitals - from optimising pre-operative planning and scheduling to ensuring the seamless coordination of surgical teams during live procedures and enabling more precise post-operative monitoring. We have seen how technology can help to coordinate and become an enabler of exceptional healthcare teams in the UK to help reduce the NHS backlog. Not technology in isolation or tech for techs sake, but innovation that facilitates and enables the human-centred and skilled care that the NHS is noted for.
By embedding such initiatives and such technology more ubiquitously into our healthcare systems, we can unlock smarter workflows, reduce inefficiencies, and ultimately deliver better care, faster and more efficiently to help bring the waiting list down.
“Not technology in isolation or tech for techs sake, but innovation that facilitates and enables the human-centred and skilled care that the NHS is noted for.”
We need to harness and use the power of data to become more efficient.
At Proximie, we’ve seen first-hand how real-time data-driven insights can enable teams to collaborate seamlessly, record and analyse surgical procedures, and ensure every action - before, during and after surgery - is informed by the best available knowledge and objective data. For too long, the analogue environment of the operating theatre prohibited healthcare teams from truly understanding, in a simple and objective way, what had happened during any given procedure. This veil into the once mythical operating theatre is being lifted across the NHS thanks to technology that helps teams to better understand every facet of their work, including their healthcare system's strengths and weaknesses. Leveraging AI and automation is enabling predictive analytics to identify procedural bottlenecks, allocate and reallocate healthcare resources effectively and quickly, and improve decision making in real-time. These technologies are helping healthcare organisations to work smarter.
“This veil into the once mythical operating theatre is being lifted across the NHS thanks to technology that helps teams to better understand every facet of their work…”
The NHS should lead. We are setting the agenda.
The NHS has always been a pioneer in healthcare innovation, and this moment calls for bold solutions to match the scale of the challenge outlined by the Prime Minister. By integrating technology like AI into every stage of care, we can not only bring waiting lists down but also ensure patients receive the highest quality treatment every time.
This is an opportunity for all of us - policymakers, clinicians, and innovators - to work together to ensure the NHS remains a beacon of world-class healthcare, powered by cutting-edge technology that is accessible and patient-centred.
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