NHS Rolls Out Microsoft 365 Copilot to 505,000 Employees

NHS England is leaning on AI to trade paperwork for patient care by giving more than half a million staff a digital assistant through its Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment. 

The move will benefit 505,000 clinicians and support staff to streamline administrative processes, improve capacity across NHS England Trusts, reduce costs and provide more time for patient care.

Preet Kaur Gill, Health Innovation and Safety Minister, says: “Technology should support our NHS staff, not slow them down. Every day, doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals spend valuable time on administrative tasks that take them away from patients.

“By rolling out Microsoft Copilot across the NHS, we can reduce that burden, free up clinicians’ time and help staff focus on what they do best, caring for patients.”

Copilot will help users create, analyse and get work done faster. The technology is expected to be harnessed in multiple ways across all aspects of the healthcare service to ease operational pressures, like:

• Clinical administration: assisting clinicians in drafting letters and registrar training
  
• Ward clerks: helping with patient discharge processes, service data analysis, rota building and bed management
  
• Medical secretaries: helping with the drafting of patient letters, meeting minutes and creating templates for consistency
  
• Core services: assisting human resources, finance and procurement functions
  
• Management: helping to draft board papers, briefings, organisational analysis.

Copilot Studio for custom automation

As a part of the agreement, NHS organisations will also have access to Copilot Studio. 

This platform enables teams to build agents to automate and streamline workflows, reducing the time it takes to conduct research, analyse data, address HR-related enquiries or facilitate meetings.

While NHS England will build and deploy agents centrally, individual Trusts will build custom agents to solve Trust-specific challenges. 

This includes reducing helpdesk burdens, accelerating complaints, and freedom of information requests or improving financial analysis and processing.

The implementation of Agent 365 will ensure that all agents built are fully secure. The security system guarantees that every custom tool adheres to all organisational policies and rules.

The deployment will be supported by a robust 12-month onboarding plan, with a rapid scale-up of 200,000 users within the first six months. 

An extensive training and adoption programme will also ensure all NHS workers with access to Copilot and AI agents can take full advantage of the benefits they deliver.

A successful trial

The agreement follows the largest AI trial of its kind globally in healthcare, which took place in 2025. 

The trial provided more than 30,000 NHS workers across 90 NHS organisations with access to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

It found that AI-powered administrative support could save on average 43 minutes per staff member per day, which equates to five weeks of time per person annually. 

The results also showed that a full rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot could save up to 400,000 hours of staff time per month, equating to millions of hours every year.

The NHS estimated that in this way the technology could save millions of pounds every month based on 100,000 users. 

This scale of efficiency could reach hundreds of millions of pounds in cost savings every year, which will be spent on directly improving patient care and frontline services.

The UK Government said at the time that it is creating a more efficient NHS by harnessing technology while cutting waste and duplication. 

NHS productivity for acute trusts increased by 2.7% between April 2024 and March 2025, exceeding the target of 2% year-on-year set in the 10 Year Health Plan.

Modernising healthcare delivery across England

Better use of technology and Gen AI is a key part of NHS' productivity boost. The latest strategy focuses heavily on efficiencies in elective care, outpatient reform, and urgent and emergency care.

Rob Thompson, Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer at NHS England, says: “NHS England wants to embrace cutting-edge technology and this Microsoft partnership will mean staff can be freed from admin so they can focus on what they want to be doing – treating patients.

“Innovations like this will help drive NHS productivity so patients can get the treatment they need sooner and there is better value for taxpayers. ”

Rob notes that the potential to save clinical staff nearly a day of admin time every fortnight could be a game changer for patients. “We’re making sure every pound is spent on cutting waiting times and boosting care through the Plan for Change and 10 Year Health Plan,” he adds. 

Darren Hardman, CEO at Microsoft UK & Ireland, also commented on the development, highlighting that “bringing AI safely into the flow of healthcare will help ease pressures, improve productivity and support better decision-making” across the health service. 

“We’re proud to work with NHS England to help tackle some of its biggest challenges and accelerate digital transformation for the benefit of staff and patients alike,” he said.