NHS rolls out speech software

SPEECH recognition software which saves hospital secretaries time retyping the instructions of consultants is being rolled out across the Lothians.

It means when a clinician makes a voice recording the programme automatically recognises the words and converts them into a typed document.

The process takes around ten hours to complete. NHS Lothian said an initial pilot improved efficiency.

Helen Gillett, a consultant gastroenterologist at St John's Hospital in Livingston, said: "It is very, very good. We now find that clinic letters are ready before blood results and can go out in two or three days, not two or three weeks as before."