Accurx Connects is coming to Manchester on Thursday 20 November. Register here.
Winter is coming:
How ambient scribes can help the NHS weather the storm
The NHS winter crisis is well-documented, yet one underlying accelerant remains consistently under-addressed: the sheer volume of clinical documentation. Across secondary care settings, healthcare professionals spend hours each shift on administrative tasks that pull them away from patients, compounding capacity pressures precisely when demand peaks.
Ambient Voice Technology (AVT), or ambient scribes, offers an immediate solution to this systemic burden. By leveraging AI to automatically generate, structure, and distribute essential documentation, these tools can reclaim critically lost clinical time. With proven success in primary care and a growing body of evidence from early secondary care pilots, AVT is a lever the NHS can pull now, to reinforce resilience and help ensure capacity reaches the patients who need it the most.
We tend to focus on the visible fixes – more ambulances, more staff, more beds. Yet clearly ‘more’ is not working... It’s time to address what we can't see: lost time.
Three high-impact AVT winter settings
Paramedics
Here encounters are fast-paced, multidisciplinary, and often conducted on the move. Teams face a unique mix of challenges - critical time pressure, uncontrolled environments, and limited administrative support.
Deploying AVT here isn’t about adding technology; it’s about building capacity in a service where time, safety, and communication are constantly in tension.
A&E and acute care
In high-acuity settings patient flow is everything. When movement stalls, the whole system backs up. While speed is critical, so is precision. Yet documentation is constant, consuming, and often competes with the urgency to save lives.
Ambient scribes bridge that tension between patient and paperwork, ensuring more patients can be seen, faster, and more effectively.
Discharging patients
Discharge is often the biggest bottleneck in secondary care. Every day, thousands of hospital beds are occupied by patients medically fit to leave, waiting for paperwork to be completed.
Ambient scribes close the gap between decision and discharge, capturing clinical plans in real time and producing detailed handover notes that support onward care.
Prioritise high-pressure zones: Strategic deployment should focus on areas where documentation demand directly affects patient flow, such as A&E, acute medicine, or discharge pathways.
Let clinicians lead the change: Adoption rises when staff see the benefits for themselves. Find your clinical champions, get their feedback, gather the evidence, and share.
Keep safety and governance watertight: Data security, consent, and clinical accuracy are non-negotiable. Use partners who meet NHS England’s AI-enabled standards and work closely with IG and clinical safety leads from day one.
Communicate openly: Be transparent with staff and patients about what’s being recorded, how it’s stored, and how it helps. Clarity builds confidence; opacity invites resistance.
Choose partners, not just products: Sustainable success comes from the expertise around the technology. Look for partners with proven NHS experience, clinical credibility, and the ability to integrate into existing workflows without disruption.
You can read our detailed recommendations in the full paper
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