What do technology and AI mean for the future of work in health care?
What do technology and AI mean for the future of work in health care?
14 November 2023
About 19 mins to read
Key points
- Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have sparked fears about the potential threat to jobs in many industries, including health care. Yet policy papers such as the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan (2023) and Topol Review (2019) imagine a more positive future for the role of technology in health care work. Drawing on labour market modelling, this long read analyses what makes health care different from other industries predicted to be more heavily impacted by new technologies.
- While unlikely to lead to widespread job losses in health care, technology is transforming, and will continue to transform, the nature of work. The right technologies, properly implemented, can not only extend human capabilities, but also enable staff to switch their time and attention to tasks where humans add more value – supporting workforce capacity at a time of huge pressure.
- We present a framework to help navigate this shifting landscape, showing how technologies can variously substitute, supersede, support or strengthen human labour. This framework can be used to understand not only how specific tasks might be affected but also how the occupational roles typically associated with those tasks might evolve.
- Role evolution should not be viewed as a passive process, but should be actively planned and shaped. We need a shared vision for how professions and occupations – as well as new roles – should develop with greater use of technology, driven not only by policymakers and system leaders but crucially by staff themselves and their representative bodies and employers, along with patients and the public. This vision must be supported by national workforce planning, education and training strategies, and more opportunities for NHS staff to signal the technologies they need.
- To support this agenda, the Health Foundation is embarking on a new programme of work to explore the opportunities that technologies present for supporting staff and improving ways of working in the NHS.
The authors would like to thank the following for their contributions to this work:
- Hatim Abdulhussein, National Clinical Lead for AI and Digital Workforce, NHS England
- Joanna Bircher, GP and Clinical Director of GP Excellence Programme, Greater Manchester Primary Care Provider Board
- Euan McComiskie, Health Informatics Lead, Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
- Louise Thomas, Head of Quality Improvement, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Further reading
What do technology and AI mean for the future of work in health care?
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