A new market consultation on AI tools for assessing skin lesions shows how UK and European health systems are reshaping cancer pathways with digital triage.
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NHS England has opened a preliminary market consultation on AI tools for skin cancer referrals. The work focuses on technology that can assess and triage skin lesions for urgent skin cancer referrals, and it sits within a wider wave of AI-related health procurements across the UK and Europe.
Published on 30th January 2026, the notice confirms that NHS England is conducting a preliminary market consultation to inform its commercial strategy for AI tools designed to assess and triage skin lesions for urgent skin cancer referrals. The organisation is using a Prior Information Notice to frame this engagement.
The scope set out in the summary is tightly defined. It centres on AI tools that can both assess images of skin lesions and support triage decisions for urgent referral routes, rather than general-purpose diagnostic software. The emphasis on urgent skin cancer referrals places the focus on a critical point where lesions are assessed and routed into cancer pathways.
The summary attached to the notice is brief, but it makes clear that the immediate goal is to inform commercial strategy, not to specify a particular product or supplier. That suggests NHS England wants to understand the range of available AI tools and approaches before shaping a more detailed route to market.
This consultation does not stand alone. It aligns with a cluster of recent procurements in which cancer services feature prominently as early adopters of AI-based tools, from screening and imaging through to treatment planning.
In September 2025, Public Health Wales NHS Trust issued a prior information notice exploring the market for artificial intelligence software to assist in reporting low-dose CT scans for a Lung Cancer Screening Programme. Here, AI is explicitly positioned as support for clinicians reporting imaging in a screening context.
By December 2025, University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust was seeking a provider for an end-to-end digital histopathology pathway service with integrated AI diagnostic support and NHS reporting, focusing on the prostate cancer pathway. In that case, AI is built into a complete diagnostic service, alongside digital workflows and reporting arrangements.
On 22nd January 2026, a contract notice for AI software for mammographic analysis sought an AI-based system for automated analysis of digital mammographic images. The scope there includes delivery and installation of the software, training for personnel and provision of access, underlining that AI deployment is tied to service and skills as well as algorithms.
In November 2025, Onkološki inštitut Ljubljana set out a procurement for AI-supported software that automatically delineates organs-at-risk and lymph node regions on CT and MR images, in order to enhance radiation therapy planning. This takes AI into treatment planning as well as diagnosis.
Regional alliances are also looking to harness industry partnerships around cancer. In November 2025, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust described plans for a Cancer Life Science Hub, through which the East and West Midlands Cancer Alliances aim to foster partnerships with the life science industry, enhance cancer care and outcomes, and support collaborative investment and innovation initiatives.
Taken together, these procurements show public bodies inserting AI into cancer services at several points: imaging for screening, digital pathology, breast diagnostics and radiotherapy planning. Many bundle software supply with reporting, infrastructure, training or partnership elements, rather than treating AI as a simple off-the-shelf add-on.
The NHS England consultation is explicitly framed around triage: AI tools that assess and prioritise skin lesions for urgent referral routes. Elsewhere in the NHS, commissioners are rethinking triage processes in other specialties and care settings.
In October 2025, NHS Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Integrated Care Board began pre-procurement engagement on pre-hospital triage services in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, seeking market feedback on future provision of services aimed at improving urgent care access and coordination in the region.
Digital dermatology is taking a related route. In September 2025, AOK Sachsen-Anhalt issued a contract notice for the provision and operation of a digital platform for teledermatological consultations, enabling insured individuals to receive timely assessments of skin issues from specialists while ensuring a smooth transition into standard outpatient care.
These examples sit alongside NHS England’s focus on AI-assisted assessment of skin lesions. All place emphasis on triage and timely specialist input, whether through remote consultation platforms, structured triage services or algorithmic tools designed to support referral decisions.
Large-scale diagnostics are increasingly being organised through frameworks and structured engagement exercises. In October 2025, the UK Health Security Agency used a prior information notice to invite suppliers to a webinar on its forthcoming Diagnostics and Research Open Framework, signalling a structured approach to sourcing diagnostics and research support.
Governance and workforce capability are also becoming procurement subjects in their own right. In November 2025, Social Care Wales sought a skilled supplier for the development of bite-sized digital resources on the safe and responsible use of AI in social care, tailored for professionals and produced in English and Welsh.
Hospitals are looking at longer-term AI relationships too. On 30th January 2026, Ziekenhuis aan de Stroom vzw published a contract notice to appoint AI implementation partners via a framework agreement, covering software development assignments involving AI solutions on its Microsoft Azure infrastructure, from analysis through to support.
Across these initiatives, public buyers are not only procuring tools. They are also defining frameworks, engagement processes and learning materials that will shape how AI is introduced into frontline health and care services.
The information available in the summary of NHS England’s notice is limited to the broad aim: a preliminary market consultation to inform commercial strategy for AI tools that assess and triage skin lesions for urgent skin cancer referrals. It does not, in this material, spell out intended volumes, technical standards or delivery models.
By comparison, other AI-related procurements already in train show how projects can evolve into detailed contracts, including conditions on integration with existing systems, requirements for staff training, and longer-term framework structures for implementation partners and suppliers.
Whether the skin cancer work follows a similar route, and how far it draws on experience from lung screening, histopathology, mammography and teledermatology programmes, will only become clear once further documentation is published.
For now, the consultation confirms that AI-assisted triage for skin cancer is firmly on the agenda for the national health system, and that public-sector procurement is one of the main levers through which decisions about the use of such tools will be made.
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