Dr Nilesh Bharakhada, Clinical Director at PRSB and a practising GP in North West London, shares his involvement in discussions with suppliers and NHS trusts as ambient voice technology moves from pilot to wider adoption across the NHS.

“Ambient voice technology, or AVT, refers to software that listens to clinical consultations and automatically generates structured documentation. It is rapidly moving from pilot to mainstream across NHS settings, and the promise is significant: less administrative burden, more complete records and more time for clinicians to focus on patients. But as adoption accelerates, so does the need for robust standards to underpin it. 

As a member of PRSB’s Executive team and a practising GP in North West London, I’ve had an early window into how this is unfolding in practice. Through participation in clinical and operational meetings with Lyrebird Health and South West London NHS trusts, I’ve listened to organisations working through the real detail of AVT deployment. Which departments to start with, how to integrate with existing workflows and templates, how the technology sits alongside their clinical systems. It is early days, but even at this stage, the implementation challenges are instructive and point clearly to areas where national standards guidance would make a material difference. 

Encouragingly, that view is gaining traction. Conversations with the Royal College of General Practitioners have reinforced the appetite across the profession for a coordinated, standards-led approach to AVT implementation, one that goes beyond individual supplier relationships and supports NHS organisations in making confident, safe deployment decisions. Building on this momentum, PRSB is now working to build the case for an AVT Implementation Accelerator programme, convening NHS organisations, suppliers and professional bodies around a shared ambition to turn early evidence into practical implementation guidance. 

PRSB is well placed to lead this work. Our standards development experience, clinical networks and convening role mean we can distil the complexity of AVT use across a variety of clinical settings and support the system in building consensus around co-produced best practice implementation guidance. Getting this right has important implications for patient safety and on the integrity of the clinical record. I look forward to exploring this further with our Advisory Board and to the wider conversation that follows. “

For more information, or to discuss opportunities to collaborate on a potential AVT Implementation Accelerator programme, please contact us at info@theprsb.org.