Proximie starts NHS surgical AI evaluation across 104 theatres in eight hospitals

What Proximie announced

Proximie, a London health technology company that sells software for connected operating rooms, announced on 9 September 2026 the start of what it calls the largest surgical AI evaluation undertaken in the NHS. Over 12 months, its Intelligence Suite will run in 104 operating theatres, endoscopy suites and catheterisation laboratories at eight NHS hospital sites. The announcement does not name the hospitals.

The Intelligence Suite captures surgical and operational data in the background of the theatre, without input from the surgical team, and de-identifies it at source. Proximie's AI models then turn that data into real-time insight across the operative pathway, so teams can see bottlenecks and gaps between cases. The participating sites carry out more than 20,000 procedures a year. The aim is to treat more patients with the theatres and staff the hospitals already have, without longer working hours.

Who does what

AWS provides the cloud and AI infrastructure, which lets Proximie process data from all eight sites without new hardware at each hospital. Deloitte supports delivery and change management with the trusts and the NHS London region. All sites use one common evaluation framework, because, as the release notes, many small pilots in the NHS have proved hard to repeat elsewhere.

Proximie says its Surgical Suite is already accessible in about 20% of NHS hospitals. The Intelligence Suite is deployed at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire and at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, where the company reports an 8.2% increase in cases and a 30% reduction in turnover time. It also says early use pointed to one extra surgical case per day through better theatre flow. These are vendor figures, not results of the new evaluation.

Why it matters

Sara Siegel of Deloitte calls operating theatres the most costly and resource-heavy part of a hospital, and waiting lists depend on how many cases each theatre completes. This project does not use AI to make clinical decisions. It measures how time is used between and around operations. A multi-site evaluation with a shared method is more useful to NHS buyers than another single-trust pilot, provided the results are published. Founder and chief executive Nadine Hachach-Haram describes it as a way to help teams see how theatre capacity is being used.

Public sector buyers elsewhere are also moving from pilots to wider purchases, as in the GSA agreement for US agencies. More sector coverage is under AI in Industry.

What to watch next

Key open questions are which trusts take part, who pays for the programme and whether the 12-month results will be published independently. The evaluation should end around September 2027.

Questions people ask

What does Proximie's Intelligence Suite do?

It captures operational data in the operating theatre, de-identifies it at source and uses AI to show bottlenecks and delays across the surgical pathway, according to Proximie.

Which NHS hospitals are in the evaluation?

The announcement says eight NHS hospital sites take part but does not name them.

How long does the NHS evaluation run?

Twelve months from the September 2026 launch, covering more than 20,000 procedures a year.

Sources

1. Global healthtech Proximie, in collaboration with AWS, Deloitte and the NHS, launches largest NHS AI theatre evaluation to unlock hidden operating theatre capacity (Proximie, 9 Sep 2026)