The UK NHS is building an AI healthcare app to provide patients with where the best care for their conditions can be found. It will provide the UK population with performance figures on healthcare outcomes, waiting times and patient satisfaction. Patients will be able to choose the best hospital to treat their condition, irrespective of their location.

The new AI-driven healthcare app is a key part of the UK Government’s new 10 Year Health Plan, announced at the beginning of July.

Using AI, the new “My Companion” app will give patients direct access to “trusted health information”. According to the UK Department of Health and Social Care, there will always be “two experts in every consulting room – the clinician and the patient”.

The app will help patients articulate their health needs and preferences confidently – providing information about a health condition if they have one, or a procedure if they need one. The app will also support patients in asking questions, including any they may have forgotten about or felt too embarrassed to raise at an in-person appointment.

A feature on the app called “My Choices” will help people find everything from the location of their nearest pharmacy, to the best rated providers for heart, hip or knee surgery.

The app will provide a range of data on providers across the country – such as which delivers the shortest waits, has the best patient outcomes, the best patient satisfaction scores, or is closest to home. It will allow all patients to pick care based on their own preferences. People who want to be sent to their local provider will be offered this as a default.

According to the DHSC, this “will end the ‘one size fits all’ approach” that has characterised the NHS.

The UK Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has also unveiled a package of measures under the 10 Year Health Plan to tackle health inequalities. The Government claims it will free up billions of pounds to move resources like medicines and equipment to “communities that most need them”.

UK Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting said: “If you get annoyed at Deliveroo not getting your dinner to you in less than an hour, how will you feel being told to wait a year for a knee operation? A failure to modernise risks this generation walking away from the NHS, first for their healthcare, and then with their taxes. People won’t accept paying higher and higher taxes to fund a health service that no longer meets their needs. And the lack of control people feel over their own lives is made worse by an analogue, ‘computer says no’, NHS. We can only close this inequality and shut down this risk to the NHS’s future, through a revolution in patient power.”

Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS National Director of Transformation, said: “The shift from analogue to digital set out in the 10 Year Health Plan will transform the services we offer through the NHS App, making it the single most important tool patients use to get health information and control their care. These exciting reforms will be invaluable in combating health disparities and providing world-leading access to those who have not previously been able to get care on their own terms – by providing transparent data about services or supporting carers to manage the care of loved ones. We will co-design these with patients and carers to ensure that the app can be accessed by everyone.”