A Kingston University pharmaceutical scientist has provided special expertise to the UK Parliament on two major Health and Social Care Committee inquiries. The first looked at how artificial intelligence could help develop personalized medicine in the NHS, and the second looked at obesity rates in the UK and what treatments and interventions are available to combat obesity.
Dr Philip Crilly, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Digital Public Health and a registered pharmacist with a PhD in Digital Public Health, provided the government with practical, evidence-based insights to reshape the future of UK healthcare after Westminster issued requests for evidence across two separate government inquiries.
Innovation in the NHS: Personalized medicine and AI
The first study looked at how advances in AI and genomics offer prospects for the development of personalized medicine across prevention, diagnosis and treatment, why the adoption of the UK’s cutting-edge life science innovations by the NHS often fails and what can be done to fix it.
In response to this call, Dr. Cleary wrote that while personalized medicine is often discussed in terms of genomics and targeted therapies, true personalization means tailoring advice to a patient’s lifestyle, routine, and personal goals when it comes to day-to-day healthcare delivery.
He also said that generative AI systems, such as large-scale language models, will fundamentally change patient engagement by allowing patients to ask detailed questions about their situation and receive answers that provide general health advice about their personal situation.
In his evidence, he stressed to policymakers that while these tools can help patients understand their health status at a time when face-to-face consultation time is limited due to strained NHS, AI must never replace human clinicians and that health professionals must remain at the center of treatment choices and health decisions to keep patients safe.
Dr Cleary concluded that while AI has a role in supporting personalized advice, patient engagement, diagnostics, genomics and drug discovery applications, healthcare professionals need to be given the space to help patients distinguish sound, evidence-based guidance from dangerous online misinformation.
Diet and weight management
The second study focused on the worsening of Britain’s obesity crisis, which will see 64% of UK adults be overweight or obese in 2022, the public health interventions and treatments that can help combat this, and how new weight loss drugs such as Wigovy and Munjaro compare to other treatments and programs in terms of safety and cost-effectiveness.
Drawing on more than a decade of education and public health research, Dr Cleary said in his submission that current obesity policies, such as the introduction of a sugar tax, are failing because they ignore stigma and the psychological aspects of weight loss.
He reflected on his doctoral feasibility study, which examined a hybrid model of pharmacy-based weight management services supported by a private moderated Facebook group that provided digital peer support. Results showed that 70.7 percent of participants lost more than 5 percent of their body weight, which is better than traditional in-person clinical programs.
She also found that while marginalized and ethnically diverse people frequently report that traditional NHS clinical settings are alienating and judgmental, local pharmacies offer reliable, low-barrier drug alternatives.
The pharmacist also used written evidence on the rise of new weight loss drugs such as Wegoby and Munjaro, saying they offered new hope, but without behavioral support, these pharmacological interventions risked being seen as stopgap treatments, warning of the dangers of black market supply and over-the-counter (OTC) misuse.
In his recommendations to the committee, Dr. Cleary encouraged:
- Nationwide rollout of pharmacy-based digital behavioral weight support service
- Prioritize deliveries in areas with high rates of obesity and poverty
- Incorporating community pharmacists into NHS weight medication pathways
- Tightening regulations on OTC heavy products and misinformation on the internet
- Using hybrid digital and human models to reduce health inequalities.
Dr Crilly reflected on the evidence he had given the government and said a hybrid model of healthcare was the way forward.
From local high street pharmacy-managed weight loss support to cutting-edge algorithms in generative AI to help patients at home, the future of healthcare relies on a thoughtful, safe and humane hybrid of community care and digital innovation.. ”
Dr. Philip Crilly, Kingston University
