Clinic AI, in plain English
The product terms, compliance frameworks and documentation concepts UK practice owners run into when buying clinic AI — defined without the jargon.
Product & technology
4 terms
AI receptionist
An AI receptionist is software that answers a business's phone calls using conversational AI — speaking naturally with callers to book appointments, answer questions, take messages and route urgent calls. Unlike voicemail or phone menus, it resolves the call in real time, at any hour, and can handle simultaneous callers.
Read definitionAI medical scribe
An AI medical scribe is software that listens to a clinical consultation — with the patient's consent — and drafts the documentation: the clinical note, referral letters and patient summaries. The clinician reviews, edits and signs every document; the scribe removes the typing, not the clinical authorship.
Read definitionAmbient AI
Ambient AI is technology that works in the background of a clinical encounter rather than being actively operated. In practice it means a scribe that listens to the consultation (with consent) and produces the documentation afterwards — the clinician talks to the patient, not to a screen or a dictaphone.
Read definitionCredit-based pricing
Credit-based pricing is a software pricing model where a clinic buys a monthly plan containing a pool of usage credits, spent as the team actually uses the product — rather than paying a licence per named user. Usage is shared across the whole team, so part-time clinicians don't cost full-time money.
Read definitionClinical documentation
3 terms
SOAP note
A SOAP note is a clinical record structured into four sections: Subjective (what the patient reports), Objective (what you measure and observe), Assessment (your clinical reasoning and diagnosis), and Plan (treatment, advice and follow-up). It's the dominant note format in UK physiotherapy and allied health practice.
Read definitionPyjama time
Pyjama time is the unpaid hours clinicians spend finishing clinical notes, letters and admin at home after the working day ends — named for being done in pyjamas, after dinner, often with a laptop on the sofa. It's one of the most consistent burnout drivers reported across UK clinical practice.
Read definitionClinical documentation audit
A clinical documentation audit is a structured review of patient records against defined standards — checking completeness, clinical reasoning, consent capture, and safety-netting. UK clinics traditionally audit by sampling a handful of notes per clinician per quarter; AI auditing now makes reviewing 100% of records practical.
Read definitionCompliance & governance
6 terms
DTAC
DTAC — the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria — is the NHS's baseline assessment for digital health technologies. It checks five areas: clinical safety, data protection, technical security, interoperability, and usability/accessibility. NHS organisations use it when procuring digital tools; private clinics increasingly borrow it as a ready-made due-diligence checklist.
Read definitionDSPT
The DSPT — Data Security and Protection Toolkit — is an annual online self-assessment against the National Data Guardian's security standards. Any organisation with access to NHS patient data or systems must complete it each year. For private clinics, a vendor's current DSPT status is a quick, checkable signal of data-security maturity.
Read definitionCyber Essentials
Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed certification, run by the National Cyber Security Centre, showing an organisation has five baseline technical controls in place: firewalls, secure configuration, access control, malware protection, and security update management. Cyber Essentials Plus adds independent hands-on testing of the same controls.
Read definitionUK data residency
UK data residency means data is stored and processed on servers physically located in the United Kingdom, under UK jurisdiction. For clinics it's shorthand for a bigger question: which country's laws and authorities can reach your patients' data, and whether international transfers — with their extra UK GDPR safeguards — are happening at all.
Read definitionConsent and capacity (for clinic AI)
In clinic AI, consent and capacity refers to two linked requirements: the patient must give informed consent before a consultation is recorded by an AI scribe, and where a patient may lack the capacity to consent — covered in England and Wales by the Mental Capacity Act 2005 — the clinic needs a defined process rather than an assumption.
Read definitionCQC Regulation 17
Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 — 'Good governance' — requires CQC-registered providers to operate effective systems for quality and risk, and to maintain an accurate, complete and contemporaneous record for every service user. It's the regulation clinic documentation practices are most often judged against.
Read definition