Digital Health Podcast- Royal Society of Medicine

As AI in healthcare becomes more autonomous, the question of who is legally responsible when it makes mistakes becomes urgent. In this episode, Annabelle speaks with Majid Hassan to explore the liability gap in the UK and the practical steps organizations and developers can take to protect themselves.
Topics covered include:
The difference between clinical negligence and product liability

Why fully autonomous AI complicates accountability, especially when clinicians are taken out of the decision loop

The concept of a “liability gap” in UK law, and how proving defect or causation in AI is difficult

Practical steps for healthcare organizations: vendor due diligence, compliance roadmaps, audit trails, staff training, and insurance coverage

Steps for AI developers to demonstrate due diligence, risk management, and adequate insurance

Lessons from the EU’s revised product liability directive and its potential implications for UK law

Autonomous AI is often described as a red line in healthcare — something that should only ever assist clinicians, never act independently. But is that really where we are today?
This is the first episode in a series examining autonomous AI. Annabelle is joined by regulatory expert Dr Hugh Harvey to explore the foundations of autonomous AI in healthcare. Together, they unpack what autonomy actually means, where it already exists in clinical practice, and why current regulatory frameworks struggle to address systems that operate without a human in the loop.
The conversation covers risk classification, clinical evidence, post-market surveillance, liability, hospital governance, and why regulatory approval alone is not enough to guarantee trust or adoption.

In this episode, we explore a startling reality: many NHS digital tools lack the mandatory clinical safety assurance required by law. Hosts Annabelle and guests Adrian and Youssof unpack this origins of clinical safety standards, why compliance has been so patchy, the myths and challenges around clinical safety, and what needs to change to protect patients as technology — and AI — scale across the NHS. They discuss how the clinical safety gap can be closed through visibility, accountability, professionalisation.

Link to paper on adherence referenced in the episode: https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e80076

Digital twins in healthcare are catalysing one of the most profound shifts in how we understand, predict and manage human health. In this conversation with Roger Highfield OBE and Prof Peter Coveney, co-authors of Virtual You, we explored the trajectory of digital twins, their technological foundations, and the hurdles that still stand between today’s partial implementations and tomorrow’s fully fledged virtual humans.

In this episode Mark Jenkins, co-founder or Tech-Enabled Care providers Oviva and Paloma Health, discusses:
- What Tech-Enabled providers are and how the differ from conventional care services
- Why some providers are succeeding whilst others have failed
- How you measure and ensure quality of new providers
- How commissioning needs to change to capture the best value for patients