Reacting to recommendations from a UK-first independent review, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has outlined action to tackle potential
bias in the design and use of medical devices.
Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead, professor of public health at the University of Liverpool, was appointed to lead the review, which focused on three
areas - optical devices such as pulse oximeters, AI-enabled devices, and polygenic risk scores (PRS) in genomics.
The DHSC commissioned the medical devices review after concerns were raised that pulse oximeters - widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic to monitor blood
oxygen levels - were not as accurate for patients with darker skin tones. There were worries that this could cause delays in treatment if dangerously low oxygen
levels in such patients were missed.
However, no evidence was found from NHS studies indicating that this differing performance had an impact on patient care.
Accepting the report's conclusions, the DHSC has committed to several actions, such as ensuring the safe use of pulse oximeter devices across a range of skin
tones within the NHS and eliminating racial bias from data sets employed in clinical studies.