Written question asked by Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative) on Friday, 10 April 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 14 April 2026. It was answered by Luke Pollard (Labour) on Monday, 20 April 2026 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Armed Forces: Health Services

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory has made in developing AI triage decision-making in battlefield military medicine in conjunction with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Answer

As reported in the press, experts from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) are collaborating with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) using hardware and methodologies developed under DARPA's In the Moment (ITM) fundamental research programme. AI systems do not naturally align with humans and the ITM programme aims to develop technologies to enable such alignment. Battlefield medical triage is a research use case within this wider programme.

In October 2025 Scientists from Dstl and their US counterparts at DARPA ran pioneering UK trials to understand whether medical staff would trust and delegate triage decisions to AI systems aligned with their own priorities.

The trials showed that having an aligned AI increased the likelihood of delegation, potentially allowing triage to be carried out more quickly and ultimately helping medical staff treat more casualties with the integration of trusted AI.

Further trials will take place later this year.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 125353
Session: 2024-26
Subjects: Armed forces Health services Dstl Artificial intelligence Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Link: View this Written question on www.parliament.uk

Armed Forces: Health Services

Secondary information

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