AI scribes: The impact on the consultation, the notes and relationships in practice

Today, we’re speaking to Dr Emma Ladds, a GP partner and DPhil candidate at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford. We’re here today to discuss the recent article she and her colleagues have written for the journal, titled, ‘Ambient scribes in general practice — help or hindrance?’

Title of paper: Ambient scribes in general practice — help or hindrance?

Available at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2026.0097

Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Please be aware it may contain errors or omissions.

Speaker A

00:00:00.320 - 00:01:15.600

Hi and welcome back to BJGP interviews after our summer off. I'm Nada Khan and I'm one of the Associate editors of the Journal. Thanks for listening to this podcast today.

In today's episode, we're talking to Dr. Emma lads. Emma is a GP partner and a DPHIL candidate at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford.

We're here today to talk about the recent article that she and her colleagues have written for the analysis section of the Journal. And the article is titled Ambient Scribes in General Practice. Help or Hindrance? So, hi again, Emma. It's lovely to speak to you about this work.

And I think one of the reasons we were interested in picking up this article is that it's really highly topical and it's in an area that I think a lot of people are wondering what to do in their day to day practice.

And I think that some of the issues that you've highlighted in the article do speak to some of the concerns that people are raising, but also some of the challenges with the implementation in practice. But I guess before we get onto some of the issues that you raise in the paper, can you just explain what we mean by an AI or ambient scribe?

Speaker B

00:01:16.160 - 00:01:45.660

Well, it's the technologies based on artificial intelligence that detects conversations, so between the patient and gp, or between GP and other colleagues. And in consultations, it then generates a summary of what's been discussed, but also does some other things as well.

So, for example, it might add some coding labels for specific things that are mentioned, and then all of that goes into the patient's electronic health record.

Speaker A

00:01:45.980 - 00:02:15.130

And I think that these tools are often presented, at least to some of the GP colleagues that I know and work with, as almost like an obvious win for general practice. So less documentation, more efficiency, and maybe more time with patients.

But what made you want to just take a pause and think about some of the assumptions behind some of those quick wins that people might be thinking about, thinking about.

Speaker B

00:02:15.450 - 00:03:31.980

And I mean, I think it's interesting, isn't it, because ever since we started to introduce different technologies into the consultations, there's often been an assumption that every new thing would be a quick win.

And even since the introduction of the computer, you make for greater efficiency and it will be easier to store data, to retrieve data, to share data, et cetera. And of course, a lot of the time what those technologies do is they drive particular activities.

I think it's been interesting just to think about how introduction of different technologies and platforms and digital approaches has driven a much more transactional, quantifiable way of working.

And those things that can be recorded and can be captured in technologies or enabled by technologies have been promoted, perhaps at the expense of some of the less quantifiable, more nuanced activity. So suppose it was looking at that journey of technologies and just trying to think about what this next step might also add to that picture.

Speaker A

00:03:32.220 - 00:03:41.820

And one of the things you talk about in the article is that AI scribes could create what you call false efficiencies. But can you unpick what you mean by that?

Speaker B

00:03:42.300 - 00:04:53.150

I think there's this assumption that actually the summaries and the codes that AI scribes will generate will be very time saving for gps. And no GP ever has enough time. So everybody's looking for, as you put it, the quick wins.

And some of the challenges with the outputs from AI inscribes are that they often produce very long transcripts because they're trying to capture a summary of everything that was discussed and that gets entered into the record. And obviously it takes time for subsequent clinicians to look through those kind of summaries. So that could be a fold sufficiency.

But also, I mean, it can add false labels or generate errors and that requires checking as well. So it's not that it just produces an accurate summary and then that's out there.

Actually, the clinician still has to go back and double check that everything's been done correctly. So even though they don't have to do the actual typing, there's still a level of processing that they have to do of that summary.

So it's not necessarily a time saving tool, really.

Speaker A

00:04:53.630 - 00:05:15.390

And I think that's one of the interesting things about it because, yeah, there's that interesting point that, you know, GPS might be getting that time back in some other way, but I guess that's highlighting that that might not actually be quite that simple, that the time that you might get back from not having to type out the notes from a consultation is actually bein