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Patient Letters Backlog, Spend on Agency and VR s/ware

Reference: 24-25483

Date response sent: 19/02/2025

Details of enquiry

  1. What is the total backlog of outpatient clinical letters awaiting completion as of January 2025? (I am interested in the operational backlog only and do not require data on older letters that may be duplicates or contain errors.
  2. What was the total expenditure on temporary administrative staff in the past financial year?
  3. What was the total expenditure on (external) transcription or voice recognition services in the past financial year, if applicable?
  4. If applicable, when is the current contract for (external) transcription or voice recognition services set to expire?
  5. Is the trust currently exploring or actively pursuing the implementation of ambient AI or AI-powered transcription services?

Response sent

  1. What is the total backlog of outpatient clinical letters awaiting completion as of January 2025? (I am interested in the operational backlog only and do not require data on older letters that may be duplicates or contain errors.

About 800 letters

  1. What was the total expenditure on temporary administrative staff in the past financial year?

£90k

  1. What was the total expenditure on (external) transcription or voice recognition services in the past financial year, if applicable?

In 2023/24 Trust expenditure on voice recognition software was £8,543.29

The Trust does not employ external transcription services.

  1. If applicable, when is the current contract for (external) transcription or voice recognition services set to expire?

The Trust does not have any contracts for external transcription or voice recognition services.

The voice recognition software licences run for 3 years, and have various start dates, according to when they were purchased.

  1. Is the trust currently exploring or actively pursuing the implementation of ambient AI or AI-powered transcription services?

We do not hold this data. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) applies to recorded information that exists at the time of the request. It does not require an authority to speculate where this would involve the creation of new information, and this question could only be answered by creating new information

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