Manchester NHS trust to launch AI data platform in July

TL;DR:

  • Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) will deploy the MDClone ADAMS platform in July, giving clinicians AI-assisted analysis of large NHS datasets.
  • Staff will be able to query data in plain English, cutting the time from question to clinical insight, with kidney disease the first use case.
  • The system keeps data inside MFT’s existing governance and adds synthetic-data generation to limit reliance on real patient records.

One of England’s largest NHS trusts is moving AI from pilot to production. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust will introduce the MDClone Ask, Discover, Act, Measure and Share (ADAMS) platform next month, letting clinicians and approved teams independently interrogate large volumes of data for care, research and service improvement.

Plain-English queries, data kept in-house

The platform’s AI-assisted analysis allows authorised users to ask questions in plain English, accelerating feasibility studies, clinical audits and cohort building. Crucially for an NHS wary of data-sharing controversies, the system runs entirely within MFT’s existing environment and governance framework, keeping records under direct NHS control. A high-fidelity synthetic-data capability generates simulated datasets for testing and external collaboration, reducing the need to expose real patient data to academic and industry partners.

MFT will point the technology first at kidney disease, using it to monitor patient progress, manage waiting lists and plan dialysis services. Professor David Walliker, the trust’s chief digital and information officer, framed the launch as giving teams better access to the data they need while strengthening privacy safeguards. Dr Anthony Wilson, group chief medical informatics officer, said the main gain for clinicians is moving “from an idea to an answer in a matter of minutes”.

Looking forward

The deployment lands amid a wider NHS push to put AI to work, from a £30m cancer-diagnosis rollout to ongoing scrutiny of data contracts and liability. MFT’s approach — keeping data inside existing governance and leaning on synthetic records — is a template other trusts will watch, precisely because it tackles the privacy and trust questions that have stalled earlier NHS data projects. Whether plain-English querying delivers measurable gains in kidney care will be the early test of whether the model scales.

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