Data Disambiguation Assistant

This information was sourced from "Data Disambiguation Assistant" by AI.GOV.UK, https://ai.gov.uk/knowledge-hub/tools/data-disambiguation-assistant/?directTo=library. Licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0.

The challenge

The UK's Tuberculosis Screening Programme invites new migrants for testing based on their country of birth, using data from GP registration records. However, these records often include incomplete, misspelled, or ambiguous place names, resulting in messy data that requires extensive manual review. On average, around 40,000 records must be reviewed each year to ensure accurate screening.

The solution

The team used AI to automatically match inconsistent place name data to countries, significantly reducing the need for manual checks. The solution is now fully integrated into the Tuberculosis Screening Programme team's regular workflow.

NOTE: An Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS) record is currently being prepared.

The results

• Achieved 90% accuracy in correctly identifying country of birth from inconsistent data.
• Reduced manual review workload by 85%, from 40,000 to 6,000 records per year.