AI for health practitioners in 2026: where the line is

I'm talking about how health practitioners can use AI without breaking confidentiality, and why the answer isn't to avoid it altogether.

If you're a nutritional therapist, psychologist or coach, there's a good chance a quiet voice has asked what AI means for your clients' confidentiality. It's a fair question, and I start with where I stand: what I won't use AI for, why the environment matters to me, and the one rule I never break, which is that AI never comes up with my ideas. I ask it to tidy and tighten mine.

The tension is that most of us are already using AI, whether we've chosen to or not, from the background remover in Canva to the summary at the top of a search. So the question stops being whether, and becomes how carefully. For a health practitioner, carefully has a very particular meaning: client information stays out of AI tools. We look at why health information is special category data under UK GDPR, why even an enquiry can count, and the three questions I ask before I paste anything in.

From there it gets practical. Keeping client email separate from business email, checking what's switched on in your practice software, and knowing when to take advice from your professional body or a lawyer you trust. Once you know where the line is, there's plenty you can safely hand over: the planning, the follow-ups for your business, the newsletter you keep putting off, and a thinking partner for the parts of running a practice nobody trained you for.

Client information stays out. Everything else is a conversation.

Highlights(00:32) - Why this episode is dedicated to the psychologists and nutritional therapists I work with

(01:43) - Why AI is Marmite right now, and where I stand on it

(02:28) - Three AI-generated adverts before a film about the art of cinema

(03:13) - What I don't use AI for, and why I'd rather see the real you

(04:26) - The rule I never break: AI tidies my ideas, it never comes up with them

(04:52) - Why you're probably already using AI, even if you've decided not to

(05:32) - The one rule for health practitioners: client information stays out