Before the ambulance arrives: How AI is helping the NHS rethink patient care

When someone in the UK dials 999 for an ambulance, their focus is understandably on when help will arrive. Less visible is the planning, training, analysis and coordination that happen long before a paramedic reaches the patient.

“We all think about the ambulance when it’s on scene, but there’s so much that happens before that goes on before an ambulance crew even arrives with a patient,” says James Goulding, chief clinical information officer at Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) NHS Trust. YAS is one of 200 plus trusts, or organizational units, of the UK’s National Health Service.

That preparation includes planning services, recruiting and training staff, analyzing population health data and understanding the experiences of patients who do not speak English fluently.

“So much goes into making sure that when that paramedic arrives in front of a patient, that we’ve done all of this work to make it really easy for them to make good decisions for patients,” Goulding says.

James Goulding, chief clinical information officer at Yorkshire Ambulance Service. Photo by Joanne Crawford for Microsoft.

Following an earlier trial involving 30,000 employees, NHS England announced plans in June 2026 to make Microsoft Copilot available to as many as 505,000 clinicians and support staff. Participants in the trial reported saving an average of 43 minutes per working day — which adds up to about five weeks of time per person a year.

Dr. Alec Price-Forbes, national chief clinical information officer for NHS England, says that the NHS is still in many ways an analog system. “It’s critically important that we use the opportunity that we have in front of us to truly reimagine the NHS,” he says, “to reduce cognitive load and administrative burden for healthcare professionals, make sure they get a better experience and then are in the position to give the best quality care.”

Helping NHS teams manage information

“It’s everything and anything,” he says. “No day is the same.”