At West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (WSFT) we are trialling the use of ambient voice technology (AVT) to support the creation of clinical notes and letters during your appointment.
AVT is being trialled in the following paediatric and adult services in the Trust’s community division:
Children’s Community Medical Team
Children’s Community Nursing Team
Children and Family Psychology Service
Paediatric Occupational Therapy
Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy
Paediatric Physiotherapy
Stroke Early Supported Discharge
AVT is a digital tool that can listen to and transcribe spoken words. By using this new voice technology, the intention is that our staff can focus more on their conversations with you instead of trying to make notes and typing.
Your questions answered
Below you’ll find answers to common questions about how AVT works and how your information is handled.
WSFT is trialling ambient voice technology that aims to improve how clinical documentation — like medical notes and letters — is produced. It works in the background by listening (with your permission) to your discussion with your clinician. It then produces a summary of what has been said. After it has been checked, this summary can be used as the basis of medical notes and letters.
The Trust is evaluating this trial using feedback from patient and staff surveys. We would be very grateful if you could complete a survey and let us know how your experience of this new technology has been. Information about how to take part will be shared with you during your appointment.
Yes. Ambient voice technology uses a form of artificial intelligence (AI) called speech recognition and natural language processing.
In simple terms, this means the system can:
Listen to spoken conversation (with your consent)
Convert speech into text
Organise what was said into a structured clinical note.
The AI does not make decisions about your care. It does not diagnose conditions, recommend treatments, or replace your clinician’s judgement.
Your clinician remains fully responsible for:
Listening to you
Making clinical decisions
Reviewing and checking any notes created by the system before they are saved.
The idea is that it will save time on typing up notes and letters so clinicians have more opportunity for face-to-face conversations with you. If time is saved from administrative tasks, clinicians might also be able to see more patients, potentially reducing waiting times for appointments.
We are trialling the technology in the following paediatric and adult services in the Trust’s community division:
Children’s Community Medical Team
Children’s Community Nursing Team
Children and Family Psychology Service
Paediatric Occupational Therapy
Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy
Paediatric Physiotherapy
Stroke Early Supported Discharge
The intention is that your time with your clinician will work better for you by enabling them to focus more on the conversation rather than typing or making notes. This also saves valuable time for both patients and clinicians.
Yes. Your clinician will ask you whether you’re happy for the technology to be used during your appointment. It is absolutely fine to say “No” — it’s entirely your decision and will not affect your care.
The ambient
voice technology being trialled at WSFT will follow strict security protocols.
• All data is encrypted and locally hosted in the UK in line with NHS and UK
GDPR regulations.
• Information systems are ISO27001 accredited for data security.
• Access is limited to authorised staff with robust audit trails.
Conversation audio is transcribed into text at the time of the consultation and is immediately deleted so neither clinicians nor patients can access the audio recording. After this, the transcription and generated notes and documents become the record of the conversation for clinicians to review.
Modern systems use advanced speech recognition and natural language processing. Accuracy is high, but clinicians will always check the notes before they are finalised.
Your privacy is vital.
You are informed about the technology at the start of your appointment
You can choose to continue without using it to capture your conversation
Only information you share during the consultation is processed
Data is encrypted and managed in line with GDPR and NHS standards, with regular audits and required certifications such as ISO27001, SOC2 and Cyber Essentials.
Information about what we use your information for, and who we may share it with, is available on our data and privacy page.
The system can only access information allowed by hospital policies and is designed to prevent unauthorised access or sharing of confidential patient data.
No. It’s designed to support clinicians, not replace human interaction, by reducing time spent on documentation and typing.
Yes. It can improve access to information and communication for clinicians who find typing or manual data entry difficult due to impairments or disabilities.
The technology creates documentation that forms part of your electronic patient record (EPR) and can also be used to produce your consultation follow-up letter. Your clinician reviews any letter before it is sent to you by post or via the patient portal (if you’re signed up).
While the technology is active during your appointment, it only captures and converts speech to summary notes after your clinician activates it and you’ve given consent. It does not record or store audio once notes are created and approved.
No. It is only permitted for clinical use.
Contact your clinical team or clinic using the details on your appointment letter, or ask questions during your appointment. You can also contact us by emailing aitrial@wsh.nhs.uk
