Microsoft AI trial boosts NHS productivity and frees frontline time
Copilot Chat is NHS-wide at no extra cost.
The NHS has completed a 30,000-staff pilot of Microsoft 365 Copilot across 90 organisations, reporting average time savings of 43 minutes per person per day. A full roll-out could save up to 400,000 staff hours each month and redirect effort to patient care.
Leaders say Copilot’s admin support, drafting notes, summarising meetings, and long email threads, underpins a wider productivity drive. Modelled at 100,000 users, the NHS estimates monthly savings worth millions of pounds, potentially rising to hundreds of millions annually for frontline services.
Adoption dovetails with the UK government’s 10-Year Health Plan and a 2.7% productivity rise in acute trusts (April 2024–March 2025). Ministers framed the goal as cutting waste and duplication so clinicians spend less time on paperwork and more time treating patients.
More than one million Teams meetings take place each month; Copilot could save about 83,333 hours in note-taking and 271,000 hours by summarising email chains. Microsoft says the tools reduce routine workload while keeping collaboration inside familiar apps such as Teams, Outlook, and Word.
Copilot Chat is now available across the NHS at no additional cost; over 50,000 staff already use Microsoft 365 Copilot. Next steps focus on stress-testing, human oversight, and governance so time gains translate into safer care, shorter waits, and better outcomes.
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