How are you navigating the delicate balance between using AI’ s speed and maintaining the gold standard of patient data security and clinical safety?
Dr Tuckey: Data security is equally important. Patients are sharing highly sensitive or personal information, so trust and governance have to be foundational. Being clinically-led shapes how we approach both safety and data protection.
Dr Baker: If AI isn’ t safe, it will not make things faster. That’ s why I don’ t see compliance as a brake on speed; it’ s what makes speed safe. And data sovereignty is completely non-negotiable: our systems are built for NHS standards from day one, not retrofitted.
Dr King: Healthcare has a higher bar than almost any other industry. Innovation only matters if patients and clinicians trust it. That’ s why safety, quality and regulatory compliance have to be built into technologies from the outset rather than added later. One of the most encouraging developments in the UK has been the willingness of regulators such as the MHRA to engage proactively with emerging technologies and organisations including the UKSA and the European
Space Agency. We’ re already working with the NHS, MHRA, the Regulatory Innovation Office and Civil Aviation Authority to establish pathways for pharmaceutical manufacturing in space. Innovation should move quickly, but trust is what ultimately enables adoption, and we can’ t do that without government and regulatory oversight.
56 August 2026