NHS watchdog finds AI scribes getting drugs and diagnoses wrong

Healthwatch England, the statutory patient watchdog, reported on 31 August 2026 that AI tools transcribing consultations for GPs and hospital doctors are producing inaccurate records. Twenty-seven different AI scribes are in use across the NHS in England.

The documented errors turn on small omissions. One patient’s summary recorded demyelination, the nerve damage associated with multiple sclerosis, where the result had read “null demyelination” — the negation was dropped. A scribe substituted a similarly named drug for the one prescribed. A letter omitted a consultant’s instruction to obtain a repeat migraine prescription. A note recorded a doctor advising a patient to continue Prozac, which was neither prescribed nor discussed. In several cases the patient, not the clinician, caught it.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has determined that transcription-only tools fall outside medical device classification, while tools that suggest diagnoses or treatments may qualify — a line that rewards marketing a product as a passive transcriber. Healthwatch is calling for clarity on how patients can report and correct such mistakes.

These systems produce fluent, plausible notes. That is the property that makes an error survive the glance a busy clinician gives before signing.