Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB has awarded a contract worth £87,500 to Beam Up Ltd, for its ambient scribing and reporting tool. The contract, awarded as a call-off from a framework agreement, is set to run for one year, ending in March 2027.
The solution, Magic Notes, is an AI-powered information and meeting summarisation tool with ambient transcribing capabilities, designed to support healthcare professionals. It is registered as a Class 1 medical device, with Beam Up Ltd listed on NHS England’s approved register of ambient voice technology suppliers.
According to the ICB, the procurement will allow “unlimited users”, access to Magic Notes and Magic Reports, and support with onboarding. It is hoped that use will promote improvements in quality, efficiency, and workforce sustainability across the region.
Last month, NHS England published guidance for healthcare and information governance professionals on the use of ambient scribe technology, covering checks to be made before use, consent, transparency, checking for accuracy, the lawful basis for processing of data, record retention and storage, and more.
It notes that healthcare professionals should check whether the AI product they wish to use has been approved by their organisation, and what rules should be followed for its use to ensure legal requirements and regulatory guidelines are adhered to.
Wider trend: Ambient Voice Technology
HTN was joined for a deep dive into AI strategy, implementation, adoption, and opportunities by Neill Crump, group associate director of innovation & partnerships at The Dudley Group and Sandwell and West Birmingham, and Pip Hodgson, group digital transformation specialist at University Hospitals of Leicester and Northamptonshire. Our panel discussed their organisation’s approaches to AI and AI strategy, best practices in AI strategy development, Ambient Voice Technology and successful implementation, and the opportunities likely to be ahead with the next wave of AI.
University Hospitals of Leicester and University Hospitals of Northamptonshire have awarded a £1.9 million contract to Accurx for the provision of its Ambient Voice Technology solution. The award follows a competitive procurement that saw a total of five tenders evaluated, according to the trusts, seeking to find a supplier capable of implementing and deploying AVT to support both clinical and non-clinical documentation across multiple hospital sites. The solution will be used to capture consultations and draft documents such as clinical notes, summaries, and letters, to be reviewed by clinicians for accuracy before being sent out to patients.
A study exploring informed consent for ambient documentation using generative AI in outpatient care has highlighted nuances including that patients are more likely to self-censor when talking about mental and sexual health or illicit activity during consultations. The study, published in Jama Network Open, was conducted from March to December 2024 in ambulatory practices across specialities in a “large urban academic health centre”, involving 18 clinicians and 103 patients in an operational proof-of-concept. 74.9 percent of patients reported being comfortable or very comfortable with the use of ambient documentation, with this rising to 81.6 percent when provided with basic information about the technology. However, when participants were given information on AI features, data storage, and corporate involvement, this decreased to 55.3 percent.
