Newton’s Tree: Making AI safe, scalable and sustainable in healthcare

Find out how Newton’s Tree is making AI safe, scalable and sustainable in the NHS, and what being a Fellow means to the founder, Haris Shuaib.

Newton’s Tree is an AI deployment and governance platform helping the NHS and global health systems safely scale clinical AI, reduce risk, and turn innovation into real-world impact. Led by Haris Shuaib, find out more about the story behind the innovation and what lies ahead for the team.

What is Newton’s Tree and what problem does it solve?

Newton’s Tree is an AI deployment and governance platform designed specifically for hospitals. It enables NHS organisations to deploy, monitor and manage multiple AI tools safely and efficiently within live clinical care.

Introducing AI into a hospital is often expensive, risky and resource-intensive. Each deployment can feel like a standalone experiment: sourcing vendors, integrating systems, validating performance, and continually asking whether the technology is still safe and effective. That approach might work for one or two pilots, but it quickly becomes unmanageable at scale. Newton’s Tree gives clinical, innovation and IT teams an enterprise-grade way to move from isolated pilots to running 10, 20 or more AI solutions simultaneously, with confidence and control.

What was your inspiration and motivation?

Newton’s Tree began as a personal solution to a very real NHS problem. Haris spent his entire career inside the NHS, working at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and helping the organisation adopt early AI tools long before there was any supporting infrastructure. With no tooling available, he built something himself simply to manage the workload.

The earliest version of Newton’s Tree ran quite literally under a table in the radiology department kitchen. At the time, Haris was manually transporting imaging data on USB sticks between hospitals, a process that was unsustainable, unsafe and frustrating. Learning to code during an elective at a Silicon Valley health tech startup gave him the skills to automate this process.

What started as a workaround quickly revealed a bigger truth: if AI was going to be used everywhere in healthcare, the NHS needed proper infrastructure to support it. That insight became the foundation of Newton’s Tree.

“I built something to solve my own problem, then realised the whole system needed it.”

Haris Shuaib, Founder and CEO, Newton’s Tree

Why did you become a  Fellow?

For Haris, the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) has added value in places that even deep NHS experience couldn’t reach. While he already understood commissioning, procurement and budgets from being an NHS budget holder, the NIA opened doors at regional and national level that were previously out of reach.

Through the NIA, Newton’s Tree gained visibility with senior stakeholders who shape policy and regulation, leading to Haris now sitting on national groups focused on the regulation of AI in healthcare. Just as importantly, the fellowship created a peer community of innovators at a similar stage of growth, a space where learning is fast, honest and highly relevant.

Looking ahead

Newton’s Tree has already moved beyond being a UK-only solution. In the same way Haris once realised his platform was bigger than a single trust, the team is now seeing that safe AI deployment is a global challenge. With a US office established and the first US health system signed, the ambition is clear.

Over the next five years, Haris wants Newton’s Tree to become the standard infrastructure for deploying and governing clinical AI, not just across the NHS, but in health systems in the US and the Middle East too.

Want to find out more? Visit the innovation page where you can contact the innovator directly, or check out their website.