NHS Trials AI Phone Assistant to Monitor Chronic Illness Patients

An artificial intelligence telephone assistant is being tested within the United Kingdom’s National Health Service to help monitor patients with long-term conditions, beginning with osteoporosis. The virtual assistant, Dora Care, is being developed by technology firm Ufonia in partnership with researchers at the University of York and Newcastle University. The two-year trial, which has received medical and ethical approval, uses generative AI to conduct natural spoken calls with patients living with the bone-weakening disease, which affects about 3.5 million people in the UK, particularly women and adults over 50. The project aims to support fracture liaison services, which monitor osteoporosis patients but have faced staffing shortages across parts of the country. Researchers say fracture treatment costs the NHS an estimated £4.5 billion annually, prompting investigations into whether AI can safely assist with routine checkups. Participation in the trial is voluntary, and the calls are intended to complement, not replace, normal NHS care. The team focused on whether AI can sound safe and empathetic enough for vulnerable patients. Linguistics experts studied how human clinicians express empathy through wording, tone and timing, then translated those behaviors into Dora Care’s conversation design. Safety specialists at the University of York’s Center for Assuring Autonomy are also creating a safety framework to monitor the system during deployment, reflecting expectations that clinical AI must provide robust evidence and transparency to earn clinician trust. If successful, the technology could later support monitoring of other chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.