Artificial intelligence that can diagnose scans for heart disease and lung cancer could be used by the NHS this year.

Researchers at an Oxford hospital developed a system that they claim could save billions of pounds by enabling the diseases to be picked up much earlier.

The heart disease technology will start to be available to NHS hospitals for free this summer.

Geneticist Sir John Bell, told BBC News that AI could "save the NHS".

"There is about £2.2bn spent on pathology services in the NHS. You may be able to reduce that by 50 per cent. AI may be the thing that saves the NHS," he said.

Cardiologists currently diagnose problems by monitoring the timing of the heartbeat in scans but are not always accurate, with one in five patients either suffering a heart attack or undergoing an unnecessary operation.

The AI system developed at the John Radcliffe Hospital is said to diagnose heart scans much more accurately by picking up details that doctors cannot see.

The technology has been tested in clinical trials in six cardiology units, with the results due to be published this year.