Will AI Transform the Future of Recruiting in Healthcare?
The UK's health and social care system is under real strain. Social care alone has around 110,000 vacancies, and projections point to major NHS workforce gaps over the next decade. Traditional hiring-manual screening, delayed contact, and heavy admin-can't keep up with demand.
One response from within the sector: an AI recruitment agent called Ami, built by Cera, one of the UK's largest home healthcare providers. The aim is straightforward-shorten time to interview, cut screening costs, and surface better candidates at scale without losing a human feel.
What Ami actually does
Ami runs warm, conversational interviews with applicants the moment they apply. It screens for eligibility, scores qualities like attitude and experience, and automatically books suitable candidates for a follow-up with a human recruiter.
Because it can interview thousands of applicants at once, teams don't get buried in CVs or voicemail. As Cera's CEO Dr Ben Maruthappu puts it, Ami cuts the time from application to first interview "from days to seconds," while reducing costs and freeing up recruiters to focus on final-stage decisions.
The results so far
- Screening costs reduced by about two-thirds.
- Recruiters save roughly two days of work each week.
- Application-to-first interview time drops to seconds.
- Twice as many job offers from the same recruitment marketing spend.
- 99% candidate satisfaction; fewer than 1% request a human at the initial stage.
- Research indicates 73% of candidates prefer contact at the moment they apply-Ami delivers that.
For busy services dealing with high applicant volumes, this kind of throughput can be the difference between fully staffed rotas and constant gaps.
Scale, compliance, and fit for care
After success in-house, Cera is licensing Ami to other health and care organisations-supporting everything from winter pressures to longer-term workforce needs. Built to meet Care Quality Commission requirements, it's being positioned for fast rollout across providers of different sizes.
Martin Hao, CEO of Ami, highlights its responsiveness and tone with candidates, noting it builds rapport quickly and feels human in conversation. While created for care, Ami can be adapted for large frontline workforces in hospitality, retail, manufacturing, and construction.
What this means for healthcare leaders
AI screening won't replace clinical judgement or safeguarding steps. It should remove friction where it slows you down and give your team more time for the interviews that truly matter. If you're considering a pilot, keep it simple and measurable.
- Map your funnel: where do candidates drop off or wait the longest?
- Start with one high-volume role (for example, care assistants) and run an A/B pilot.
- Set clear metrics: time-to-first-contact, time-to-offer, cost per hire, interview no-shows, and candidate satisfaction.
- Keep bias controls in place: standardised question sets, audit logs, and regular sample reviews by your recruiters.
- Protect data: follow your DSPT/IG standards and ensure clear consent and retention rules.
- Align with safeguarding and CQC expectations, and keep humans in the loop for final decisions.
Regulation and trust matter. Providers should align with guidance from the Care Quality Commission and keep transparent processes for candidates and staff. See the Care Quality Commission for standards and oversight: cqc.org.uk. For broader workforce context, the Health Foundation's work on staffing pressures is a useful read: health.org.uk.
Bottom line
Healthcare needs faster hiring without sacrificing quality or care standards. Early results suggest AI-led screening can trim costs, speed up decisions, and give candidates a smoother experience-while keeping people in charge of the final call.
If your team wants to skill up on practical AI workflows for hiring and operations, explore focused training here: AI courses by job.
Your membership also unlocks:
