By Alex Smith |
NHS England is to give 505,000 clinicians and support staff access to Microsoft 365 Copilot, following a trial that found the AI tool could save an average of 43 minutes per staff member per day – equivalent to five weeks per person annually.
The rollout follows what NHS England describes as the largest AI trial of its kind in global healthcare, in which more than 30,000 NHS workers across 90 organisations used the tool. Results indicated that a full deployment could save millions of hours of staff time per month, with NHS England estimating the average saving at roughly two days of admin per person each month.
The tool is expected to support a range of administrative tasks across the health service: clinicians will use it to draft letters and assist with registrar training; ward clerks for patient discharge processes, rota building and bed management; medical secretaries for drafting patient letters, meeting minutes and document templates; and management teams for board papers, briefings and organisational analysis. HR, finance and procurement functions are also included in the rollout.
Each trust will receive a central allocation of licences based on headcount, typically starting at around 2,000 licences, with full deployment to more than 500,000 staff expected by October 2026.
“The NHS wants to embrace cutting-edge technology and this Microsoft partnership will mean staff can be freed from admin so they can focus more of their time on what matters most – improving care for patients,” said Rob Thompson, chief digital, data and technology officer at NHS England. “Innovations like this will help drive NHS productivity so patients can get the treatment they need sooner and there is better value for taxpayers. The potential to save NHS staff around two days of admin time every month could be a gamechanger for patients.”