AI partnership helps speed up lung cancer detection across north-east London

North East London Cancer Alliance (NELCA) is reporting early success from its partnership with Qure.ai, following the rollout of AI delivered through Sectra Amplifier Services to support lung cancer diagnosis. The introduction of Qure.ai’s chest x-ray tool qXR is said to be delivering faster reporting and greater accuracy in identifying critical cases. At Barts Health NHS Trust, turnaround times for the most urgent chest x-rays have improved by 61.5 per cent, from 13 days to five. Reporting times for urgent cancer cases have improved by 41.7 per cent, dropping from 12 days to seven. NELCA is now working towards a consistent turnaround of less than three days for all chest x-ray reports.

NELCA programme lead Wayne Douglas said: “The early results from using AI in chest x-rays are encouraging. By embedding AI into our lung cancer pathway, we are beginning to reduce reporting delays, improve prioritisation and provide greater assurance for patients and clinicians. This work is an important step in strengthening diagnostic capacity across north-east London.”

Qure.ai chief business officer, oncology, Bhargava Reddy added: “These early results show how AI can play a supportive role in diagnostic pathways. Working with NELCA and Sectra, we are seeing measurable improvements in reporting times and greater confidence in identifying urgent cases.”

A two-year evaluation is underway, with early findings already shared with NHS England. The programme will continue to track wider impacts, including time to CT and time to diagnosis, with plans to extend AI integration into CT scanning.

Picture: The Qure.ai qXR software uses ‘prioritisation buckets’ to automatically categorise chest x-rays by severity.

Read this report on page 16 of the February 2026 issue of RAD Magazine.