Doctors and the NHS could be sued for medical negligence over mistakes made by artificial intelligence tools used in diagnosing patients and suggesting their treatment, ministers are being warned.
Under the law as it stands, medics and the health service can be held liable for patients being harmed or dying even if it was AI that made the errors that resulted in their suffering.
The Medical Protection Society, which represents doctors accused of wrongdoing, says in a report that medics could become the “liability sink” – a target of clinical negligence lawsuits – for mistakes made by AI unless the law is overhauled.
The NHS is using AI for more and more purposes, including to analyse scans and X-rays, generate summaries of doctors’ conversations with patients, and draft letters to patients.
“The law has always struggled to keep up with technological change. But with AI, the pace of change is so rapid that this gap feels less like a step and more like a widening gulf,” said Dr Sarah Townley, the MPS’s deputy medical director.
Giving an example of potential harm from AI errors, the MPS said AI could miss a tumour in a patient’s lung when reading an X-ray of their chest. This could result in the patient dying because the false reassurance from the AI would mean no treatment would be given and the cancer could then spread.
Similarly, a patient could need surgery and treatment in intensive care for severe bleeding if an AI wrongly recommended increasing their dose of warfarin, a blood thinner used to treat the heart condition atrial fibrillation.
In such scenarios there was a real and significant risk that a claim would be brought against a doctor in relation to the use of AI tools, the MPS said. “Under the current product liability framework in the UK, there is a risk that clinical negligence claims could be brought against the clinicians in these cases and that they would be held wholly liable,” it warns.
The body wants the government to reclassify AI tools and systems as products, so they fall under the scope of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. It believes that would help doctors and the NHS avoid liability for mistakes that the technology has made.
Medics in the UK are increasingly worried about doctors being blamed for errors by AI. Public trust in medicine may fall without action to make AI developers and manufacturers liable, they fear.
“Innovation and patient safety should move forward together. If AI is advancing at Formula One speed, then legislation, regulation and governance cannot be left sitting in the pit lane,” said Dr Ragit Varia, the president-elect of the Society for Acute Medicine. “Clinicians should not find themselves holding a liability hot potato when decisions have been influenced by AI systems developed, supplied and implemented by others without the appropriate structure. We must avoid creating an accountability vacuum where responsibility for harm is unclear.”
NHS Resolution, which handles negligence claims against hospitals in England, is drafting guidelines on AI liability, the Department of Health and Social Care said. “We welcome the MPS’s report and will review its recommendations to ensure patients continue receiving the benefits of AI in healthcare safely and quickly,” a DHSC spokesperson said.
Ahmed Binesmael, a senior policy analyst at the Health Foundation thinktank, said: “Our research consistently shows that public confidence in AI depends not just on the technology itself, but on the safeguards and oversight that accompany it. As AI adoption grows across the NHS, ensuring clear accountability and robust governance will be essential to maintaining public trust and confidence.”
