Pharmacy academic provides expertise to two parliament inquiries into innovation in the NHS and food and weight management

A pharmacy academic from Kingston University has provided special expertise to the UK Parliament on two key Health and Social Care Committee inquiries. The first examined how artificial intelligence could help develop personalised medicine in the NHS while the second looked at obesity rates in the UK and what treatments and interventions can be used to combat these.

Associate Professor in Pharmacy Practice and Digital Public Health Dr Philip Crilly, a registered pharmacist with a PhD in digital public health, provided the government with practical, evidence-based insights to reshape the future of British healthcare after Westminster issued calls for evidence across two separate government inquiries.

Innovation in the NHS: personalised medicine and AI

The first inquiry looked at how advances in AI and genomics offer the prospect of developing personalised medicine across prevention, diagnosis and treatment, why the NHS’ adoption of the UK’s cutting-edge life science innovations often fails and what can be done to fix it.

Addressing this call, Dr Crilly wrote that while personalised medicine is often discussed in terms of genomics and targeted therapies, true personalisation is about tailoring advice to a patient’s lifestyle, daily routine and personal goals when it comes to day-to-day healthcare delivery.

He also said generative AI systems, such as large language models, allow patients to ask detailed questions about their circumstances and receive responses giving general health advice about their own personal situation – fundamentally altering patient engagement.

In his evidence he emphasised to policymakers that, although these tools can help patients understand their health in a time when face-to-face consultation time is limited due to a stretched NHS, AI must never replace human clinicians and healthcare professionals should remain at the heart of any treatment choices or health decisions to protect patient safety.

Dr Crilly concluded that AI has a role to play in supporting personalised advice, patient engagement and use in diagnostics, genomics and drug discovery but healthcare professionals must be allowed space to help patients separate sound, evidence-based guidance from dangerous online misinformation.

Food and Weight Management

The second inquiry focused on the UK’s escalating obesity crisis, with 64 per cent of adults in England overweight or obese in 2022, the public health interventions and treatments that can help combat this and how new weight loss medications like Wegovy and Mounjaro compare to other treatments and programmes from a safety and cost-effectiveness point of view.

Drawing on more than a decade of teaching and public health research, Dr Crilly said in his submission that current obesity policies, such as the introduction of the sugar tax, were failing because they ignored stigma and the psychological dimensions of weight loss.

He reflected on his own doctoral feasibility study, which looked at a hybrid model of a pharmacy-based weight management service supported by a moderated private Facebook group providing digital peer support. It found 70.7 per cent of participants lost more than five per cent of their body weight – outperforming traditional face-to-face clinical programmes.

He also found marginalised and ethnically diverse groups frequently reported finding traditional NHS clinical settings alienating or judgemental, whereas local pharmacies offered a trusted, low-barrier alternative.

The pharmacist also used his written evidence to address the rise of new weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro, saying they offer new hope but without behavioural support, these pharmacological interventions risk been seen as quick fixes – warning of the dangers of black-market supply and over-the-counter (OTC) misuse.

In Dr Crilly’s recommendations to the committee he encouraged:

• A national rollout of pharmacy-based, digitally enabled behavioural weight support services
• Prioritising delivery in areas with high obesity and deprivation rates
• Embedding community pharmacists in NHS weight medication pathways
• Tightening of regulation on OTC weight products and online misinformation
• Using hybrid digital and human models to reduce health inequalities.

Reflecting on the evidence he gave to the government, Dr Crilly said a hybrid model of healthcare was the way forward. “From the local high street pharmacy management weight loss support to the cutting-edge algorithms of generative AI assisting a patient at home, the future of healthcare relies on a thoughtful, safe and deeply human hybrid of community care and digital innovation.”

• Read Dr Philip Crilly’s written evidence to the Innovation in the NHS: personalised medicine and AI inquiry and the Food and Weight Management inquiry.