The NHS has achieved a breakthrough in healthcare innovation following the world’s largest clinical trial of artificial intelligence (AI) of its kind.
More than 30,000 NHS staff from 90 organizations took part in testing Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft’s innovative tool that integrates AI directly into everyday office applications. result? Significant time savings, increased productivity, and better patient care are guaranteed.
Research shows that NHS staff using Microsoft 365 Copilot save an average of 43 minutes per day, which equates to five weeks of work per year.
Once fully rolled out, the NHS will save an astonishing 400,000 staff hours each month, freeing up millions of hours a year for frontline patient care.
Dr Zubir Ahmed, UK Minister for Healthcare Innovation, believes AI tools will revolutionize healthcare services. “As an NHS surgeon and clinician, I know how frustrating it can be to be held back by outdated technology that makes your day-to-day work arduous and time-consuming.
“Our partnership with Microsoft frees up our staff from time spent on administrative tasks and allows them to focus on what they love to do: treat patients.
“Innovations like this will help make the NHS more productive, ensuring patients get the treatment they need faster and delivering better value for taxpayers.”
Reinvest millions of dollars in savings into patient services
Besides the time savings, the economic benefits are equally significant. With an estimated 100,000 users, Microsoft 365 Copilot could save the NHS millions of pounds every month, rising to hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
These savings will be directly reinvested into patient services and frontline improvements, in line with the Government’s aim to build a more efficient and digitally led health service.
The trial strengthens the Government’s efforts to reduce waste and duplication while increasing productivity in the NHS.
Between April 2024 and March 2025, acute trust productivity rose by 2.7%, exceeding the government’s 2% target in its 10-year health plan. This success is largely due to the smart use of technology and AI.
How Microsoft 365 Copilot is transforming NHS workflows
By integrating Microsoft 365 Copilot with tools like Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, your staff can streamline their daily work with simple prompts and questions.
For example, NHS staff currently hold over one million Teams meetings each month. Copilot’s automatic note-taking feature alone can save 83,000 hours each month, and email summaries can potentially save an additional 271,000 hours across healthcare services.
The AI assistant automates routine administrative tasks, allowing clinicians and managers to spend more time on patient-facing tasks, marking a key milestone in the NHS’s digital transformation journey.
Darren Hardman, CEO of Microsoft UK and Ireland, added: “This large-scale trial proves the extraordinary potential of AI to transform healthcare.
“By reducing admin and giving healthcare workers a reported 43 minutes each day, Microsoft 365 Copilot could help the NHS free up hundreds of thousands of hours of patient care every month, potentially saving hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
“We are proud to support the NHS in this digital transformation. This shows how AI can reduce time-consuming administration for NHS staff and improve the quality of patient care.”
Driving the digital future of the NHS
As part of the government’s wider push to move from analog to digital, Microsoft 365 Copilot has already been rolled out to more than 50,000 NHS staff, who can now access Microsoft Copilot Chat at no extra charge across the health service.
This major rollout builds on the existing partnership between NHS England and Microsoft, leveraging the joint purchasing power of the NHS to deliver cutting-edge digital tools.
The success of this trial signals the arrival of a new era for the NHS, one where AI like Microsoft 365 Copilot will empower staff, increase productivity and ultimately improve the quality of patient care.
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