How AI is Giving Back Time to NHS Healthcare Teams

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) is leading the way in adopting AI tools to ensure clinicians can dedicate their full attention to patient care. 

For the past 18 months, MFT has worked with Microsoft to integrate AI technologies into daily clinical practice. 

This partnership has included deploying Microsoft’s Dragon Copilot, an ambient voice technology, to hundreds of clinicians to significantly reduce the time they spend on documentation.

AI’s role in patient-centered care

Dragon Copilot is also successfully being utilised at other major NHS Trusts, including Guy’s and St Thomas’ and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

The AI tool tackles the struggle for staff to give their undivided attention during appointments because of the necessary time spent reading, writing and summarising patient notes. 

This extensive administrative work often impacts the critical human-to-human interaction, keeping clinicians from focusing on direct care.

Dragon Copilot works by capturing patient-clinician conversations, generating accurate clinical summaries, and drafting essential documents and letters for the clinician to simply review and sign off.

Scaling up AI

Beyond Dragon Copilot, MFT has already provided approximately 1,500 Microsoft 365 Copilot licences across various roles. 

The next step is to expand, adding 6,500 new licences annually. 

MFT is establishing an ‘Agent Factory’ – a dedicated centre for teams to design and deploy custom AI tools that will automate routine operational tasks across all hospital services and departments.

“Across the NHS we are all looking at how technology can support our workforce and help services run more effectively,” says Mark Cubbon, CEO of MFT. “For an organisation of our size and scale, the opportunity is significant.

“Our collaboration with Microsoft is about using AI to improve the way we work – streamlining administrative processes, reducing the potential for human error in some high-volume tasks, and reinvesting time and resources to support direct patient care.

“Agentic AI is an important part of this next phase, and our early HR pilots suggest these tools could reduce the time spent on some administrative tasks by up to half.

“What matters most is introducing the tools responsibly, with the right safeguards in place, and with clinicians and staff closely involved in how they are used.”

Microsoft’s opinion

Darren Hardman, CEO, Microsoft UK & Ireland, says: “The impact that MFT has already seen from Microsoft 365 Copilot and Dragon Copilot shows what’s possible when AI is put in the hands of busy healthcare teams.

“This is AI that gives time back.

“By expanding access and establishing an Agent Factory, MFT is scaling those benefits responsibly across the Trust so more colleagues can streamline routine work and focus on what matters most for patients.”

This initiative is central to the Trust’s ongoing Technology and Innovation Programme, a framework dedicated to exploring how digital and AI solutions can continually boost operational efficiency and reduce administrative workload across the entire organisation.