Tony McDonald, Integration Director at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) (Credit: ELHT)
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) is running a program to roll out ambient voice technology (AVT) across NHS England.
The trust is inviting NHS acute, community and mental health trusts to submit expressions of interest for a fully funded six-month rollout of CLEARnoteswhich is designed to reduce documentation burden and improve doctor-patient interaction.
ELHT is hosting the pilot through the National CLEAR Programme, which the trust already hosts, and plans to start recruiting sites from May 2026.
Tony McDonald, integration director at ELHT, said: “Innovation in the NHS must be based on safety, evidence and real-world impact.
“By organizing this fully funded pilot, we are enabling trusts to evaluate CLEARnotes in a structured way, ensuring any future adoption is driven by demonstrated value and aligned with NHS governance standards.”
The deployments themselves will take place within participating NHS trusts. ELHT’s role is to provide the NHS-organised framework for the programme, including oversight of the expression of interest process and ensuring that the pilot is delivered with appropriate clinical governance, safety standards and evaluation.
The aim is to provide a safe, NHS-led route for organizations to evaluate TAV in clinical settings, while ensuring that learning and evidence from the pilot can be shared across the NHS.
Participating trusts will be able to implement CLEARnotes across up to three services, enabling a low-risk, hands-on approach to improving productivity while protecting clinician-patient time.
Rather than operating as a stand-alone software trial, the program will provide participating organizations with clinical engagement from day one, robust governance and patient safety frameworks, structured implementation and optimization support, and clear assessment of service productivity and impact.
During the pilot period, potential profit-sharing models will be collaboratively explored.
Any future payment structure would be directly linked to demonstrated impact beyond the pilot phase, ensuring long-term sustainability is aligned with proven benefits for clinicians and patients.
ELHT reported that its nurse-led pre-op department has achieved a 14% improvement in productivity since implementing CLEARnotes with the support of the CLEAR team.
Meanwhile, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust’s pre-operative service has demonstrated a 25% productivity increase within one clinic since the trust launched a CLEARnotes pilot in March 2025.
