{"id":37217,"topic":"ai","source":"BBC","title":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times in the West Midlands - BBC","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrgrxgexjro","url_hash":"a8ae8fe8e8dcf5da2546129415973f352b1ce59c","author":"","summary":"<a href=\"https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiWkFVX3lxTFBON1RFQmdqREI0bFR0NnFBVldXdDZPWTc5VVc4Zi1lTjVLazJaWWdINVpSMTdnVmhkSThfYTZnZGg1S2xFdDhkTGhpM1lFX2hpemZmY1RJWHoxQQ?oc=5\" target=\"_blank\">How an AI app is improving NHS wait times in the West Midlands</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<font color=\"#6f6f6f\">BBC</font>","content":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times\nThe NHS's largest roll out of artificial intelligence voice transcription software, is drastically improving waiting times, doctors have said.\nWalsall Healthcare NHS Trust is one of 15 NHS Trusts in the West Midlands to have jointly procured a transcription app called Heidi, which is being put to use in urgent care, outpatients and GP surgeries.\nThe mobile phone app listens to conversations between doctors and patients using AI to generate written medical notes and letters, enabling medical staff to spend less time typing and more time on patient care.\nDr Mohammed Jamil Aslam, said the software, which operates in 110 languages, is saving him six minutes per consultation.\nAslam, an emergency consultant at Walsall Manor Hospital, told the BBC using AI to transcribe conversations with patients saves him time typing medical notes and letters, helping more patients to be diagnosed and treated.\n\"[Patients] feel listened to. They feel the clinician is present. Rather than typing about their care, they're delivering it. [Doctors] are actively listening and [patients] feel heard.\"\nAt one clinic in Dudley the app is credited with reducing a backlog of posting patient letters from six months to 14 days.\nRavinder Sahota, group chief information officer at The Dudley Group and Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals, said the app is breaking down communication barriers.\nShe said: \"This is really key for us because a lot our patients who come, English is not their first language.\n\"We get feedback that some of the letters we send out is too complex for them to understand as got a lot of medical terminology and we're really excited about the fact we'll be able to break down the barriers to communication with this software.\"","image_url":"https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/branded_news/d398/live/cf4a88f0-8030-11f1-a2a1-e90920ef9667.jpg","lang":"en","published_at":"2026-07-15T09:57:43+00:00","fetched_at":"2026-07-15T10:15:03+00:00","status":"read","starred":0,"extract_state":"ok","summary_auto":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times\nThe NHS's largest roll out of artificial intelligence voice transcription software, is drastically improving waiting times, doctors have said. Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust is one of 15 NHS Trusts in the West Midlands to have jointly procured a transcription app called Heidi, which is being put to use in urgent care, outpatients and GP surgeries.","cluster_id":null,"extract_retries":0,"extract_error":null,"contract_version":"news_item.v1","format_contract_version":"news_item_formats.v1","dedup_url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrgrxgexjro","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 1778 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":1778,"summary_length":389,"usable_text_length":1778,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":1778,"summary_length":389}},"news_item":{"id":37217,"canonical_url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrgrxgexjro","source_url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrgrxgexjro","title":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times in the West Midlands - BBC","source_name":"BBC","author":null,"published_at":"2026-07-15T09:57:43+00:00","locale":"en","topic":"ai","tags":[],"rss_summary":"<a href=\"https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiWkFVX3lxTFBON1RFQmdqREI0bFR0NnFBVldXdDZPWTc5VVc4Zi1lTjVLazJaWWdINVpSMTdnVmhkSThfYTZnZGg1S2xFdDhkTGhpM1lFX2hpemZmY1RJWHoxQQ?oc=5\" target=\"_blank\">How an AI app is improving NHS wait times in the West Midlands</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<font color=\"#6f6f6f\">BBC</font>","full_text":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times\nThe NHS's largest roll out of artificial intelligence voice transcription software, is drastically improving waiting times, doctors have said.\nWalsall Healthcare NHS Trust is one of 15 NHS Trusts in the West Midlands to have jointly procured a transcription app called Heidi, which is being put to use in urgent care, outpatients and GP surgeries.\nThe mobile phone app listens to conversations between doctors and patients using AI to generate written medical notes and letters, enabling medical staff to spend less time typing and more time on patient care.\nDr Mohammed Jamil Aslam, said the software, which operates in 110 languages, is saving him six minutes per consultation.\nAslam, an emergency consultant at Walsall Manor Hospital, told the BBC using AI to transcribe conversations with patients saves him time typing medical notes and letters, helping more patients to be diagnosed and treated.\n\"[Patients] feel listened to. They feel the clinician is present. Rather than typing about their care, they're delivering it. [Doctors] are actively listening and [patients] feel heard.\"\nAt one clinic in Dudley the app is credited with reducing a backlog of posting patient letters from six months to 14 days.\nRavinder Sahota, group chief information officer at The Dudley Group and Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals, said the app is breaking down communication barriers.\nShe said: \"This is really key for us because a lot our patients who come, English is not their first language.\n\"We get feedback that some of the letters we send out is too complex for them to understand as got a lot of medical terminology and we're really excited about the fact we'll be able to break down the barriers to communication with this software.\"","excerpt":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times\nThe NHS's largest roll out of artificial intelligence voice transcription software, is drastically improving waiting times, doctors have said. Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust is one of 15 NHS Trusts in the West Midlands to have jointly procured a transcription app called Heidi, which is being put to use in urgent care, outpatients and GP surgeries.","extraction":{"state":"ok","confidence":0.9,"error":null,"explanation":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 1778 characters.","diagnostics_url":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrgrxgexjro","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 1778 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":1778,"summary_length":389,"usable_text_length":1778,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":1778,"summary_length":389}}},"display_formats":["compact","card","full","digest_section","json"]},"daily_stack_record":{"title":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times in the West Midlands - BBC","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrgrxgexjro","summary":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times\nThe NHS's largest roll out of artificial intelligence voice transcription software, is drastically improving waiting times, doctors have said. 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Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust is one of 15 NHS Trusts in the West Midlands to have jointly procured a transcription app called Heidi, which is being put to use in urgent care, outpatients and GP surgeries.","full_text":"How an AI app is improving NHS wait times\nThe NHS's largest roll out of artificial intelligence voice transcription software, is drastically improving waiting times, doctors have said.\nWalsall Healthcare NHS Trust is one of 15 NHS Trusts in the West Midlands to have jointly procured a transcription app called Heidi, which is being put to use in urgent care, outpatients and GP surgeries.\nThe mobile phone app listens to conversations between doctors and patients using AI to generate written medical notes and letters, enabling medical staff to spend less time typing and more time on patient care.\nDr Mohammed Jamil Aslam, said the software, which operates in 110 languages, is saving him six minutes per consultation.\nAslam, an emergency consultant at Walsall Manor Hospital, told the BBC using AI to transcribe conversations with patients saves him time typing medical notes and letters, helping more patients to be diagnosed and treated.\n\"[Patients] feel listened to. 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