AI scribes: The impact on the consultation, the notes and relationships in practice

Today, we’re speaking to Dr Emma Ladds, a GP partner and DPhil candidate at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford. We’re here today to discuss the recent article she and her colleagues have written for the journal, titled, ‘Ambient scribes in general practice — help or hindrance?’

Title of paper: Ambient scribes in general practice — help or hindrance?

Available at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2026.0097

Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Please be aware it may contain errors or omissions.

Speaker A

00:00:00.320 - 00:01:15.600

Hi and welcome back to BJGP interviews after our summer off. I'm Nada Khan and I'm one of the Associate editors of the Journal. Thanks for listening to this podcast today.

In today's episode, we're talking to Dr. Emma lads. Emma is a GP partner and a DPHIL candidate at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford.

We're here today to talk about the recent article that she and her colleagues have written for the analysis section of the Journal. And the article is titled Ambient Scribes in General Practice. Help or Hindrance? So, hi again, Emma. It's lovely to speak to you about this work.

And I think one of the reasons we were interested in picking up this article is that it's really highly topical and it's in an area that I think a lot of people are wondering what to do in their day to day practice.

And I think that some of the issues that you've highlighted in the article do speak to some of the concerns that people are raising, but also some of the challenges with the implementation in practice. But I guess before we get onto some of the issues that you raise in the paper, can you just explain what we mean by an AI or ambient scribe?