Hancock to tell summit of goal to revolutionise NHS with new tech

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, is to meet the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and other world leaders at a summit on new technologies that could revolutionise health and social care.

The minister will champion the UK’s genomics, life sciences and artificial intelligence programmes as he addresses the GovTech summit in Paris on Monday about how innovation can transform patients’ lives.

“I’ve said I’ll scour the world to find technology to improve the NHS. So as we build the most dynamic healthtech ecosystem on the planet, it’s vital we work closely with our friends and neighbours,” Hancock will say. “Britain and France have a centuries-long tradition of medical collaboration and now we want to turn that into a collaboration on cutting-edge health technology.”

Hancock previously revealed ministers were considering a new levy on over-40s, similar to measures introduced in Japan and Germany where a compulsory premium is deducted from earnings, to help solve the social care funding crisis.

The so-called govtech industry has grown at a rate of 20% a year in the UK alone. The Cabinet Office plans to publish an innovation strategy setting out how the government can use emerging technologies to deliver public services.

The implementation minister, Oliver Dowden, said: “Britain is a global leader in digital innovation, with some of the best technology companies in the world operating in this country. We are keen to build on that, learning from best practice, both in the UK and overseas, to ensure we deliver the best possible public services”.

The inaugural summit will be attended by EU ministers and UN representatives, as well academics, large tech companies such as Facebook and Microsoft and smaller startups.

Daniel Korski, a former adviser to David Cameron and chair of the summit, will say: “If you look at the exponential growth we’ve seen in other sectors, and consider the growing demands of ageing populations and increasing demands of citizens, it’s not so crazy to imagine govtech becoming the next big digital sector very soon.”