The NHS has opened applications for the sixth cohort of its Fellowship in Clinical AI, a 12-month programme that places healthcare professionals on live artificial intelligence projects within the health service. Fellows work on the safe deployment and evaluation of AI tools in clinical workflows.

Integration with existing clinical systems and assessment of results are central to the work. A tool that performs well in testing can behave differently under the pressure of a busy clinic, where records may be incomplete and workflows vary between sites. Fellows join teams working through those questions and help judge whether a tool is safe and effective for use with patients.

Successful applicants are matched with initiatives that are already under way in the NHS. To allow participation alongside existing clinical duties, the fellowship provides salary cover for two days, or 15 hours, each week. Flexible and partial remote working is available, depending on the requirements of the project to which a fellow is assigned.

Fellows receive a certificate of completion at the end of the year and undertake training at Digital Clinical Safety Practitioner level. The training gives them credentials that can lead towards clinical safety officer roles. Such posts carry weight in health informatics, because national clinical risk management standards expect organisations that deploy health IT systems to have a named clinical safety officer. As AI tools reach more wards and clinics, demand for people qualified to assess their risks is likely to grow.

Selection criteria are divided into essential and desirable. Applicants must show strong communication with stakeholders and an active record of working in multi-disciplinary teams. Advanced technical proficiency is also required, which the criteria define as advanced skills in office software and the ability to solve technical problems. Experience in quality improvement, clinical trials, digital transformation, programming, statistical analysis or clinical informatics is desirable but not mandatory.

The timetable is fixed. Applications close on 16 November 2026, just under six weeks from today. Interview invitations will be issued on 11 December 2026. Project matching takes place in February 2027, and the fellowship begins on 11 August 2027. Candidates who progress will therefore know their placement roughly six months before the programme starts.

The fellowship opens alongside wider efforts to raise digital skills across the health sector. Some regional trusts are running mobile training schemes, in which dedicated community buses visit hospital sites so that staff can see practical demonstrations of everyday AI tools such as Copilot. The approach takes training to staff at their place of work, which suits clinicians whose rotas leave little room for off-site courses.

At national level, the Department of Health and Social Care has begun preliminary market engagement for a two-phase contract worth £1.3 million. Market engagement is an early procurement step in which a department tests supplier interest and capability before a formal tender. The contract would establish a standardised national workforce development framework and curriculum. The framework would define core digital competencies and supervision models for healthcare staff. It would also set out career progression pathways.

The fellowship develops specialists who can oversee AI projects, while the training buses reach frontline staff who meet these tools in daily work. The national framework, once developed, would set common expectations for both groups. Because the contract remains at the market engagement stage, its practical effects are likely to take time to appear. The fellowship, by contrast, has a confirmed start date and a closing date for applications that is now under six weeks away.

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