E23 - Summer news catch-up

It's been decided most AI note-taking tools used in consultations sit outside medical device regulation.

The MHRA said so at the end of last month.

What counts is what the software is for.

Transcription, summaries and letters stay outside the rules.

Proposing a diagnosis or acting without a clinician's review do not.

Unusually, the MHRA added that the guidance has no legal force.

Meanwhile, the Health Services Safety Watchdog announced its investigation into AVT being used in hospitals.

HSSIB's national investigation covers adult acute care, looking at if ambient voice text contributed to patient harm and who's accountable if it has.

The report's due next summer.

And the National Registry of Approved Ambient Voice Supply has now grown to 23.

It opened in January with just 19.

Suppliers certify themselves against national standards rather than being assessed, and it still covers only a fraction of the market.

The chief exec's been named this month for the first all-digital NHS trust.

Dame Caroline Clark will build NHS Online from scratch ahead of its launch next year.

She runs the NHS in London as regional director and led the Royal Free Group before that.

Applications for a new £5 million cancer innovation programme should be opening next month.

It's the fourth round of NHS England's Cancer Programme Innovation Open Call, which was announced in June.

That's all we know at the moment in terms of the application process.

We'll keep you posted as we hear more.

61 female founders will each receive £75,000 from Innovate UK, part of a 100-strong 10th women in innovation cohort.

Projects include a wearable that flags when someone's becoming dehydrated, an AI that brings MRI scan times down by up to 90%.

The programme spent £15 million since 2016 on companies that have since attracted £358 million in investments.

And finally a pig's had its gallbladder removed by a pair of walking humanoid robots.

Not surgical robots parked next to the table but two actual iRobot style machines on legs using actual surgery in an ordinary actual theatre.

The research team says it's just a test of what's possible with precision and safety well short of the clinical grade and the pig said it was a bit nervous about the whole thing.