With NHS primary care squeezed by staffing pressures and rising demand, a London GP has estimated 30 to 45 minutes per day in admin saved thanks to an AI-powered tech tool – which translates to a month of time per year on paperwork.
Dr Peter Hughes, GP partner and clinical director at Nelson Medical Practice, reported the “meaningful time savings” of using speech recognition tool Lexacom Echo at his clinic in South West London.
He explains: “After returning to clinical work following a major stroke, I began actively seeking technologies that would help me work more efficiently and maintain the high standards of care I strive for.
“This led me to adopt Lexacom Echo, which I’ve been using ever since in my daily consultations. On average, I estimate it saves me around 30–45 minutes each day in documentation and admin time. This has had a tangible impact on my workload and work/life balance. And it remains one of the most reliable and accurate tools in my clinical workflow.”
Lexacom is in use at 60% of GP practices in the UK, with the firm one of only a few with AI-powered products that meet NHS compliance standards.
Dr Andrew Whiteley, a former GP and founder and Managing Director of Lexacom, says: “Primary care in the UK is at a tipping point, and freeing up vital hours previously tied to copious documentation reduces burnout risk for GPs who would otherwise need to work long hours to clear admin, so it supports job satisfaction too.
“The secret to this tool is advanced speech recognition, which delivers more precise, structured clinical notes than was possible before, word-perfectly. It automatically captures complex medical terminology accurately – and accuracy when it comes to medical notes is critical.
“It’s true step-change over painstaking form filling and paperwork and other slower, manual transcription methods. As Dr Hughes reports, the feedback from GPs is that it’s transformational.”
Dr Hughes is urging other clinicians to consider it, adding: “A particularly valuable feature is the option to toggle between plain English and medical terminology. It’s reliable, accurate, and seamlessly integrates into clinical systems. It is an indispensable tool for me because it has reduced the cognitive load of documentation. I would highly recommend it to other clinicians looking to reduce their admin burden.”
