Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that ambient voice technology used in the NHS captures structured, coded clinical data at the point of care rather than unstructured free-text notes; what criteria his Department uses to determine which suppliers are eligible for reimbursement under clinical AI scribing programmes; and whether AI scribing tools embedded within wider electronic patient record contracts are required to meet the same governance and registry standards as dedicated ambient voice technology suppliers listed on the NHS England Ambient Voice Technology Supplier Registry.

The Department, working with NHS England, is putting in place national support to help National Health Service organisations adopt and scale ambient voice technology (AVT) as appropriate for their respective areas, to help adopt AVT safely and consistently where there is evidence of benefit. NHS England will continue to work with systems, suppliers, and national partners to support adoption at pace where products meet the necessary standards for safety, effectiveness, interoperability, and value for money.

At present, NHS organisations are required to select AVT products from the NHS AVT Self-Certified Supplier Registry. This applies to standalone products or those natively integrated into Electronic Patient Record systems. In order to be allowed onto the registry, suppliers are required to evidence capabilities that show summarisation of output aligned to structured templates and configuration, including suggesting the relevant clinical codes.

While NHS England remains in the process of mobilising a wider programme to support the adoption of AVT, no decision has yet been taken on the eligibility criteria for participating organisations to receive funding, but we will provide further updates in due course.