What if every citizen were assigned a ‘healthbot' whose role was to help them navigate their way through life? The idea of having a digital assistant is no longer new – there's already a demand for an AI-assisted life where people use bots to handle email, summarise meetings, plan holidays and even give relationship advice. 

But a healthbot would be different – it would be given access to all medical records and would be able to take account of pertinent risk factors such as family history, income, wealth, housing, employment and lifestyle. Armed with this starter data, it would then be able to advise on dietary, exercise and lifestyle goals aimed at achieving one thing: increasing our ‘healthspan', a term increasingly in use, refers to both the quality and quantity of life that we have. 

And there is a need: there is a significant gap in life expectancy in the UK. According to the ONS: ‘During 2017 to 2019, the gap in life expectancy at birth between local areas of the UK was 11.3 years for males and 8.7 years for females.'

But it's not just the length of lives, it's the quality: according to the Department of Health: ‘People in more deprived areas and coastal towns often have the highest needs for the NHS, but the fewest GPs, the worst-performing services and the longest waits.'

It's not just access to health and social care that matters, poor though it can be in parts of the UK, it's knowing what to look for and when. Those best informed about health and social risks tend to be those who need it the least – people with the money, time and connections to be able to get problems addressed early before they develop. Eating five a day and managing to exercise for 180 minutes a week is a lot easier if you have a well-paid job and control over your diary. 

At present, there is no single body responsible for helping individuals navigate their way through life, ensuring that risks are identified and actively managed. A more individually-driven, AI-supported, planned approach to both health and social care could be good for state budgets ensuring that the big killers are caught early and treated before they turn into expensive cash-draining and often faltering interventions. 

AI-assisted health and social care planning would enable us all to identify familial risks and lifestyle factors that could impact our life expectancy. It could advise on changes in behaviour, commission blood tests and other diagnoses, liaise with our GPs data systems and book appointments to ensure we get treatment at our point of need. In all likelihood, men would be major beneficiaries since many are reluctant to talk to anyone about potential medical conditions. 

Our healthbot would plan our whole life journey, dealing with the current false dichotomy that exists between health and social care and advising us on tax and saving plans to ensure we are ready for whatever fates may befall us. And, drawing on our wearable devices, our search history and emerging research about leading indicators for major illnesses such as dementia, it would be in a position to advise us when we may need to seek medical and other support. 

If it all sounds a bit fantastical, you're probably not getting out enough – this is happening but in a less co-ordinated way. Big tech knows us inside out, AI is trawling through our data even as we speak. 

Of course, we would need to sacrifice a degree of privacy, but many of us give away our data without a second thought most days. And now that AI is about to record all of our GP interactions, little is sacred in any event. 

But there would need to be assurances, not least over the provision of insurance. How easy would it be to get coverage if your healthbot shared major emerging risks with your insurance agent?

That said, having something on our side as we come up against the inevitable challenges of staying alive, could be attractive both to the individual (connectivity has health benefits) and the state (cutting out unnecessary expenditure). 

Healthbots could reduce unnecessary anxiety in avoiding unnecessary GP appointments freeing up much-needed space in the system. 

If you would like to respond to this article or have a radical solution of your own, contact l.peart@hgluk.com