NHS England rolls out AI assistant to 505,000 staff to cut administrative work
NHS England is giving half a million clinicians and support staff access to Microsoft 365 Copilot, an AI assistant designed to handle administrative tasks that currently consume significant portions of the working day.
The move follows a trial across 90 NHS organisations involving 30,000 workers. That trial found staff could save an average of 43 minutes daily on admin work - equivalent to five weeks per person annually. A full rollout could save millions of hours across the health service each year.
Ward clerks will use Copilot for patient discharge processes, bed management and rota building. Medical secretaries can automate meeting minutes and template creation. HR, finance and procurement teams will handle routine enquiries faster. Management will draft board papers and conduct organisational analysis more quickly.
The deployment includes Copilot Studio, which lets NHS teams build custom AI agents to solve specific problems. Central NHS England teams can deploy agents across all trusts, while individual trusts can create solutions for local challenges - reducing helpdesk burdens, accelerating freedom of information requests, or improving financial processing.
Preet Kaur Gill, Health Innovation and Safety Minister, said: "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 and help staff focus on caring for patients."
Rob Thompson, Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer at NHS England, added: "The potential to save clinical staff nearly a day's worth of admin time every fortnight could be significant for patients."
The rollout follows a 12-month onboarding plan. NHS England will bring 200,000 users online in the first six months, with training and adoption support for all staff with access to the system.
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