Tim Almond

…Call Robo-Nurse

Scientists have been developing robots to treat patients and ease staff shortages. This week ministers will announce plans to develop robotic "medical assistants". In trials, robots that check patients’ ID tags and give them their drugs have cut down dispensing errors. Experts believe they could soon be taking patients’ temperatures, helping to clean and even carrying out consultations with doctors via video-link. But no mutton-chop sleeves or upside-down fob watches. Or smiles.

I’ll settle for dealing with a machine if it gets me fixed up quicker and cheaper.

This could be the start of a health revolution. Give the mindless jobs to machines and let nurses and doctors do the things that humans do best. More doctors and nurses means more patients get treated.

The NHS are involved, so I imagine that it will still cost huge amounts of money to run the bureaucracy for all these robots, but no matter. The private sector will take full advantage of these changes, and we’ll see greater improvements there.

Just one thing…

A Department of Health source said: "One robot being developed goes around wards and is shaped like a dustbin with a computer monitor face. Another robot has a C3P0-type arm and mixes cancer drugs at amazing speeds."

Does he mean R2-D2?

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Tags: Technology, Health //