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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming healthcare—not from the top down, but from the ground up. In this blog, the Health Innovation Network South London’s Medical Director Natasha Curran explores how clinicians across the UK could lead the charge in embedding AI into everyday practice. Drawing on insights from recent reports, personal reflections, and collaborative projects, she highlights the importance of inclusive, clinician-led innovation.

AI is no longer a distant promise—it’s already reshaping clinical care. UCLPartners short explainer video clarifies how AI can be applied meaningfully in healthcare. It introduces four guiding principles—predictive, preventative, personalised, and participatory. These principles aren’t theoretical; they’re being applied across the country to identify risk, reduce admissions, tailor treatments, and support shared decision-making.

Reading Musafa Suleyman’s fantastic blog on seemingly conscious AI last week, I wondered about the use of AI companions as personal health partners. It also reinforced my view that we need AI to support clinicians—not replace them (a big fear for some).

As the AI in London Healthcare: The Reality Behind the Hype report makes clear, the real challenge isn’t the technology—it’s how we enable its adoption. Interestingly, clinicians were ranked as the most influential stakeholder group driving AI in their organisation, chosen by 27% of survey respondents, followed by senior management (17%) and IT departments (11%). Some organisations are taking a top-down approach, with senior leaders setting direction and allocating resources. Others are more organic, with clinicians driving innovation from the ground up. What’s consistent is that AI projects thrive where there are passionate champions—whether they’re executives or frontline staff.

One of the most powerful enablers is inclusivity. As one interviewee put it: “Being very inclusive to different groups of people actually makes the work better… far too much of healthcare is delivered in a very hierarchical way where the sort of ‘senior old people’ feel like they know it all. This is a brilliant area where… they categorically don’t.”

This quote captures a growing recognition that AI adoption must be collaborative. It’s not just about digital teams or governance leads—it’s about bringing together clinicians, informaticians, and patients to co-design solutions that work in practice.

Our blog with our other London health innovation networks “Run Before You Can Walk“, adds another layer to this conversation. It challenges the traditional “crawl, walk, run” model of tech adoption, arguing that AI often starts fast—with enthusiastic pilots—but then slows down as it scales. The authors propose a new model: “run, walk, drag”. It reflects the reality that while pilots may be energised by local champions, broader rollout requires deeper integration, training, and cultural change. And sometimes, it’s hard work.

Despite growing interest, structured working groups dedicated to AI and well-established forums for cross-organisational collaboration may not be so visible to all. Much of the current exchange happens informally—at conferences or through personal networks. There’s a clear opportunity to build more formal mechanisms for sharing use cases, strategies, lessons learned, and for bringing more people into the conversation. Now is the time to get connected.

If you’re keen to know more, please join us for a one hour webinar on AI in Action – Enhancing Triage in 111 and A&E / Optimising Patient Flow: AI Applications in 111 and A&E on September 18th. Two clinicians will share their experiences implementing AI tools that support patient prioritisation in NHS 111 and ambient voice technology in A&E triage and consultations.

AI in healthcare is exciting—but it requires graft to implement. It isn’t just about algorithms; it’s about people. And when we empower our people, across all levels and disciplines, we unlock the true potential of AI to transform care.