In what's being described as 'one of the most significant deployments of clinical AI in UK hospice care', end-of-life care and bereavement charity, Sue Ryder, has agreed a five-year partnership with AI medical scribe company, Heidi.
Sue Ryder will bring Heidi's clinical AI into its hospices and community services, including Gloucestershire's only in-patient palliative care unit Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice, with the aim of freeing up clinicians to spend more time with patients and their families – and improving workplace wellbeing for clinicians dealing with one of the heaviest documentation burdens in healthcare.
As one of the largest hospice groups in the UK, the partnership will give more than 630 of Sue Ryder's palliative and end-of-life care clinicians access to Heidi's AI scribe technology, to help with automating clinical notes, letters and forms, so they can spend less time on paperwork and more time face-to-face with the people they care for.
Heidi is also contributing £10,000 per year to support the charity's fundraising activities and raise awareness of the role AI plays in 'expanding clinical capacity'.
Heidi's AI scribe is already being used at scale across the NHS and was recently added to the new NHS-approved Ambient Voice Technology list – with over half of NHS GPs currently using the tool to document patient consultations.
Working across 190 countries and in 110 languages, Heidi supports over 2.3 million consultations every week and is rapidly scaling its ambient AI in primary care, independent hospices and home care in the UK, with the technology offering 'specialty specific templates, flexible workflows and enterprise grade reliability.'
Sue Ryder chief operating officer, Melanie Craig, said: 'Palliative and end-of-life care clinicians are under huge pressure, balancing complex care with rising demand and limited resources. We cannot afford for their time to be swallowed up by admin.
'Partnering with Heidi will help us give precious time back to the bedside, while modernising how we work across our community services and within our inpatient settings.
'We will be working closely with our clinical teams as we roll out Heidi so that the technology genuinely reflects the realities of palliative and end-of-life care, both at home and in our hospices. If we can show that AI, used safely and thoughtfully, improves both the care we provide and the experience of our staff, we hope it will give other hospices the confidence to follow.'
Heidi's chief medical officer, Dr Hannah Allen, added: 'Bringing ambient AI into hospice care at this scale is a significant moment for the sector. Sue Ryder is showing that you can be both patient-centred and pioneering, using technology to protect the time and headspace clinicians need to care.
'We will be working side by side with Sue Ryder's teams to tailor Heidi to different services, track impact and continually refine how AI is used on the frontline. Our ambition is that the evidence from this rollout – combined with results from other hospices and home care providers – will help set a new benchmark for safe, effective use of AI in palliative and end-of-life care across the UK.'
