NHS Shared Enterprise Companies (NHS SBS) has launched a £150 million framework settlement for digital dictation, speech recognition and outsourced transcription companies.
Authorities steerage, printed in April 2025, encourages NHS clinicians to make use of ambient voice expertise (AVT) and generative AI to transcribe affected person consultations and switch them into structured medical notes and letters.
The ‘Digital Dictation, Speech Recognition and Outsourced Transcription 2’ framework settlement offers NHS and public sector organisations with entry to pre-vetted suppliers and applied sciences to handle rapid operational pressures while supporting long-term digital transformation.
It additionally establishes a future-ready pathway for adopting rising improvements like AVT and AI-enabled scribing instruments, which will probably be included into the framework settlement as they develop into market-ready.
Phillip Wooden, principal class supervisor – digital workforce and IT transformation, at NHS SBS, stated: “Our framework settlement is a strategic enabler for the NHS and wider public sector, providing digital dictation, speech recognition and outsourced transcription options that instantly help operational effectivity,
“Present instruments stay important elements of scientific documentation workflows, delivering confirmed, scalable options that help day-to-day service supply.
“As AVT and AI-enabled scribing instruments proceed to evolve, they’re set to enhance established techniques.
“Collectively, these applied sciences kind a layered method to digital transformation, enabling healthcare suppliers and organisations to match the suitable instrument to the suitable process while sustaining flexibility, accuracy and effectivity throughout scientific and wider administrative settings.”
The framework settlement runs from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2027, with an possibility to increase for as much as two years. It covers 4 areas (Tons): digital dictation, speech recognition options, outsourced transcription companies, and mixed options.
Options embrace each on-site and cloud-based Software program as a Service platforms, protecting software program, {hardware}, integration, coaching, consultancy, and help. Distributors can broaden their choices as progressive applied sciences emerge.
A London-wide NHS research, led by Nice Ormond Road Hospital for Youngsters, discovered that AI-scribing expertise had “transformative advantages” for clinicians and sufferers with the potential to unlock £834 million a yr if rolled out nationally.
Nonetheless adoption of the expertise has been up to now held again by regulatory uncertainty with Alec Worth-Forbes, nationwide chief scientific info officer for England, circulating a letter in June 2025, advising warning about its use with out correct scientific security and knowledge governance assurance.
To assist tackle this, a brand new nationwide fee launched in September 2025 to advise the Medicines and Healthcare merchandise Regulatory Company on dashing up entry to the most recent AI instruments, together with AVT for scientific note-taking.
Worth-Forbes additionally introduced that NHS England is launching a nationwide AVT self-registry for suppliers, which he stated was a “tactical response” to the expertise’s use within the NHS.
