Last Updated: February 12, 2026
National palliative and end of life care and bereavement charity Sue Ryder and Heidi, an AI-powered medical scribe, have partnered to bring AI to hospice care. The five-year partnership aims to bring clinical AI into Sue Ryder’s community services and hospices in hopes that it will free clinicians to spend more time with patients and their families.
The initiative, made possible with Government funding, will provide access to Heidi’s AI scribe to Sue Ryder’s seven healthcare services. The AI scribe will help automate clinical notes, letters and forms, hopefully helping the teams working in the service to spend more time face-to-face with patients.
Heidi’s AI clinical scribe tool was recently added to the NHS-approved Ambient Voice Technology List and is already being used across NHS services with half of NHS GPs using the tool to document patient consultations. The tool has been deployed in 15 NHS trusts across the UK and is used at 1.5 million appointments each month.
Sye Ryder, one of the largest hospice groups in the UK, will use the partnership as a cornerstone of its digital transformation programme. Heidi’s AI tool will begin its rollout to Sue Ryder services over the coming months, with teams working service-by-service to embed the tool into everyday practice.
As part of the agreement, Heidi will also contribute £10,000 annually to support the work of the charity through fundraising activities.
Bringing ambient AI into the hospice setting at scale is designed to protect clinical time, improve workplace wellbeing for clinicians and support more consistent record keeping.
Melanie Craig, Chief Operating Officer at Sue Ryder, said, ‘Palliative and end of life care clinicians are under huge pressure, balancing complex care with rising demand and limited resources. We cannot afford for their time to be swallowed up by admin. Partnering with Heidi will help us give precious time back to the bedside, while modernising how we work across our community services and within our inpatient settings.
‘We will be working closely with our clinical teams as we roll out Heidi so that the technology genuinely reflects the realities of palliative and end of life care both at home and in our hospices. If we can show that AI, used safely and thoughtfully, improves both the care we provide and the experience of our staff, we hope it will give other hospices the confidence to follow.’
In the UK, ambient AI is being used more and more across primary care, independent hospices and home care, with clinician adoption being driven by speciality specific templates, flexible workflows and enterprise grade reliability.
Dr Hannah Allen, Chief Medical Officer at Heidi, said, ‘Bringing ambient AI into hospice care at this scale is a significant moment for the sector. Sue Ryder is showing that you can be both patient-centred and pioneering, using technology to protect the time and headspace clinicians need to care.
‘We will be working side by side with Sue Ryder’s teams to tailor Heidi to different services, track impact and continually refine how AI is used on the frontline. Our ambition is that the evidence from this rollout – combined with results from other hospices and home care providers – will help set a new benchmark for safe, effective use of AI in palliative and end of life care across the UK.’
In other news, family carers aged 45-75 lose out on £6,000 of income a year due to their caring responsibilities causing them to cut back on their working hours.
