Dear Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust,
I am making this request in my own name and in a personal capacity, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
This request is addressed to the authority named above only. If your team handles Freedom of Information for more than one organisation, please answer for that authority alone. If your team does not handle Freedom of Information for it, I would be grateful if you could pass this on internally rather than close it – it was sent to the address that authority publishes for Freedom of Information requests.
Please provide the following recorded information about ambient voice technology (also called AI scribes or ambient documentation tools – software that listens to clinical consultations and drafts notes or letters). If your organisation holds none, questions 2 to 8 can simply be answered “not applicable”.
1. Does your organisation currently use, pilot, or hold a contract for any ambient voice technology product? If yes, which product(s) and supplier(s)? Please include any product recorded in your DPIA register or approved for use, whether or not it is currently under contract.
2. For each product: the contract start date, end date, and total contract value. If the exact value is withheld under section 43, a banded figure or the Contracts Finder notice reference is sufficient.
3. For each product: the number of licences or seats procured. If the contract is priced by consumption rather than by seat, the units purchased instead (for example hours per year).
4. For each product, and separately from question 3: (a) the number of clinicians trained to use it, and (b) the number of clinicians who actively used it in the most recent month for which you hold data.
5. The number of patient safety incidents recorded in your incident reporting system (for example LFPSE or Datix) in which an ambient voice technology product is referenced, from 1 January 2024 to the date of this request. A count is sufficient. If your system cannot break incidents down to product level, please say so.
6. For each product: whether it records audio, processes it locally, or transmits it to a third party, and where it is processed and stored (UK, EEA, other).
7. For each product: the retention period for (a) the audio recordings and (b) the transcripts, stated separately, as recorded in your DPIA or contract.
8. Whether patients are informed the technology is in use, and by what mechanism (verbal consent, implied consent, posters, opt-out, other), as recorded in your DPIA or SOP. If recorded, the number or proportion of patients who declined its use in any period for which you hold data. A single figure or “not recorded” is sufficient.
For transparency: I publish an open data series on the adoption of clinical AI in the NHS, and responses to this request will be aggregated across organisations and published.
I would prefer a response by email, and any structured data in Excel or CSV format. If any part of this request would exceed the cost limit, please answer the remaining parts and indicate which part was excluded.
Yours faithfully,