AI Voice Tech Pilot Slashes Clinician Admin Time in Leeds Emergency Department
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust trial with TORTUS shows significant time savings and improved focus on patient care.
By Joe Ramsden
••3 min read
AI
Generic image of a medical tablet displaying a blurred clinical note interface, with a blurred stethoscope and a Yorkshire landscape visible in the background.
An emergency department at Leeds General Infirmary has successfully piloted an AI-powered ambient voice technology that automatically drafts clinical notes, significantly reducing administrative tasks for clinicians.
The pilot, a collaboration between Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and UK-based healthcare technology company TORTUS, took place in the ambulatory area of the emergency department. The evaluation found the technology cut documentation time by 61 per cent, saving clinicians an average of 13 minutes per consultation. Crucially, the system maintained high levels of accuracy for medication and allergy details and recorded no serious safety incidents during the three-month trial.
Clinicians involved reported feeling less mentally drained by administrative tasks and were better able to focus on patients rather than screens. The technology passively listens to consultations and automatically drafts notes, which are then finalised by clinicians after a thorough manual check using secure devices. Patient information is handled securely via encrypted UK-based cloud servers, with consultation audio and transcriptions stored only temporarily and deleted automatically after use.
The trial, which ran from February to April this year, has led to TORTUS becoming the first ambient voice technology to achieve Class IIa medical device status under the UKCA scheme. Following this success, the technology is now planned for a phased introduction to the emergency department at Leeds General Infirmary this Autumn.
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"We are one of the busiest acute trusts in the country and we know that AI has the potential to support busy emergency departments by reducing the administrative tasks on clinicians. We wanted to work with a partner which could help to capture and structure information during patient consultations, which helps to free up valuable time for healthcare professionals to focus on what matters most – assessing, treating and caring for patients."
Dr Sundararaj Manou presented findings at the Trust’s Research and Innovation Conference 2026. TORTUS CEO, co-founder and former NHS cardiologist Dr Dom Pimenta also spoke at the conference, discussing the partnership. He stated that TORTUS has now seen over four million NHS patients and is the leading AVT provider in the UK, evolving its approach to a longer-term partnership model.
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"Our work with Leeds Teaching Hospitals represents this shift from traditional vendor relationships to genuine partnership – moving to focus on solving problems for trusts, not just supplying the technology. By working closely with clinical teams across multiple areas at Leeds, we’re able to develop AI solutions that address real-world challenges and deliver measurable improvements in patient care. This collaborative approach is essential for ensuring that technology truly serves the needs of NHS hospitals and their patients."
The Trust will now focus on refining workflows, training, and adoption, scaling the technology to a wider clinician group, including emergency nurses and across different areas of the ED such as majors, minors, and paediatrics. This initiative complements the Trust’s Centre for Emergency Care and Global Health (CENT-EC Global), launched last year to integrate AI tools, virtual learning, and international partnerships. Dr Taj Hassan, Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Leeds Teaching Hospitals and Director of CENTEC Global, expressed delight with the initial results, acknowledging the challenges of embedding new technology into daily practices.
The project was facilitated by the Innovation Pop Up’s business development team and the Emergency Department Research Team, including Dr Angad Sethi (ED IT Lead), Dr Mohit Arora (lead for training of AVT), and Dr Bev Riley from the Trust’s Innovation Pop Up. TORTUS, founded by NHS doctors and engineers in 2022, uses advanced speech recognition and AI to generate structured clinical notes in real time.
