Why is NHS tracking people's kettles and fridges?: Reasons, schemes, everything you need to know

As part of a pilot scheme launched in Buckinghamshire, the UK National Health Service has started tracking kettles and fridges with the help of Artificial Intelligence. The AI is being used to monitor people's eating and drinking habits in a bid to reduce "avoidable" hospital admissions. The pilot scheme has been taken ahead of a busy winter period at a time when NHS England waiting lists have reached 7.77 million people waiting for an appointment.

Tracking patients' habits

The NHS is tracking patients' habits so that they can be helped out in various ways including cleaning, shopping and having food parcels delivered. AI is used in Somerset to highlight patients with complex needs, at risk of hospital admission, or those who rarely contact the surgery.

Then, health workers contact patients and offer preventative care such as escalating treatments to specialist doctors, introducing support to avoid patients falling over, or linking them up with local voluntary groups to help avoid loneliness.

NHS trialing predictive algorithm

Similarly, the NHS is trialing a predictive algorithm to prevent thousands of hospital or GP visits. They instead offer social care measures to those most at risk. The NHS scheme targets to prevent 4,500 unnecessary trips to A&E, 17,000 overnight hospital stays and 23,000 GP appointments in two years.

Waiting for winter

NHS Providers found in a survey that 95% of the leaders surveyed are concerned about how the health service will survive winter. About 80% of them expect this year to be more difficult than the last.

NHS claims to be equipped

Talking to Sky News, Chief Executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard claimed that the NHS was equipped with a "suite of tech and data solutions" ahead of winter which "is likely to be incredibly challenging".

He said, "NHS staff across the country are already feeling the pressure with record demand for A&E and ambulance services - and so these new innovations being rolled out by NHS teams are an extra and welcome addition to our winter toolkit, with more call handlers and more beds already in place."

FAQs:

Why is NHS tracking kettles and fridges of people?
UK National Health Service has started tracking kettles and fridges with the help of Artificial Intelligence. The AI is being used to monitor people's eating and drinking habits in a bid to reduce "avoidable" hospital admissions.

Why is NHS tracking patients' habits?
The NHS is tracking patients' habits so that they can be helped out in various ways including cleaning, shopping and having food parcels delivered.