The comments came during a panel session at The King's Fund Annual Leadership and Workforce Summit 2026 last week.

Dr Shankar Sridharan, national clinical lead for artificial intelligence at NHS England, said the NHS had traditionally struggled to scale technology but AI offered transformative potential by enabling over 9,000 patients to be seen every day in A&E.

He said AI offered the opportunity for every doctor see one more patient per day.

‘The workforce love it,' Dr Sridharan added. ‘They feel they are doing a better job. If we get this right, the benefits are multiple.

‘This is probably one of the most exciting times to be doing medicine.'

Dr Sridharan added AI also had the potential to boost interoperability by gluing different systems together.

Matthew Trainer, chief executive, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT), said the advent of AI would not lead to mass redundancies in healthcare, adding: ‘Ultimately, the role of AI is to help provide healthcare in a better way.'

Trainer said AI could help achieve better outcomes by easing pressures on staff.

‘Every day I get mistake and mistake across my desk because people are being asked to do unreasonable amounts,' he added.

But he cautioned that leaders had to make sure they took their workforce with them on AI.

In closing, Xiao Liu, health research lead, Microsoft AI, added another word of caution by saying she was not confident that there was not enough current oversight to ensure AI mistakes were not missed.