A safe place for NHS Wales healthcare professionals to learn AI
Published 31/07/2025
Ask any clinician what today’s NHS feels like and the answers are strikingly consistent: demand is rising, time is shrinking and new digital tools appear faster than we can safely adopt. Artificial Intelligence sits at the heart of that tension. Done well, it can triage waiting lists, spot early deterioration and free staff from repetitive admin; done badly, it risks bias, over‑reliance and erosion of public trust. That is why, when Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) completed its AI Education and Skills Landscape Review earlier this year, the overarching recommendation was deceptively simple: give every member of the workforce a safe place to experience AI for themselves.
Foundations first
We began by building a bite‑sized Foundations in AI course on Y Ty Dysgu. In just half an hour it demystifies terms such as natural‑language processing and computer vision, explores real world use-cases, and most importantly introduces the ethical guard‑rails of transparency, data protection and the human‑in‑the‑loop principle. Since its soft launch in April more than 600 colleagues have engaged with the resource… but where next? How do staff get AI education specific to their role and responsibilities?
Introducing HALI: your Healthcare AI Learning Interface
HALI, coming autumn 2025, is our new chatbot mentor that lives inside Y Ty Dysgu.
HALI does two things:
- Personalises the conversation.
On first use you choose your role: radiographer, service manager, student nurse, and which of the five archetypes (Shaper, Driver, Creator, Embedder, User) best suits your responsibilities. Ask HALI how AI could help with, say, weekend rota planning or diabetic retinopathy screening and learn how AI could help in areas relevant to your context.
- Models safe practice.
Every response includes a reminder of its own limitations as well as the challenges and risks of using AI in your field. In other words, learners practise keeping a critical, human eye on algorithmic output while their curiosity is met in seconds rather than hours.
HALI has just completed internal user‑acceptance testing. We expect to flip the switch for all staff in the coming weeks, with an official “Using AI to Learn AI” campaign on the Y Ty Dysgu home page and across social media.
How this fits our wider digital ambition
HEIW’s Integrated Medium‑Term Plan sets a clear aim: build a workforce that is digitally ready, resilient and innovative. The “Use AI to learn AI” model supports that ambition on three fronts:
- Scalable confidence. One‑to‑one tutoring is the educational gold‑standard; HALI offers a taste of that at national scale.
- Continuous insight. Eventually we plan to use anonymised analytics which will show us where knowledge gaps cluster. This will enable us to commission targeted Continued Professional Development (CPD) or deep‑dive webinars to address highlighted areas.
- Pipeline for innovation. Learners who catch the AI bug will be able to step up to our future Community of Practice and Innovation Hub, where exploratory working groups will turn ideas into peer‑reviewed pilots.
If you’re an NHS Wales healthcare professional, create a free account on Y Ty Dysgu and take the Foundations in AI course.
Also, pencil late August in to try HALI on Y Ty Dysgu for yourself.
Five minutes of curiosity is all it takes to see what “using AI to learn AI” feels like.
Dr Alex Aubrey, Clinical Lead for Artificial Intelligence, HEIW