AI and Digital Health: Ethics, Consent and Records

This AI in healthcare ethics course is for UK professionals who already use, or are about to use, artificial intelligence and digital tools at work: ambient scribes that draft notes, risk scores, image analysis, generative AI for letters and leaflets, and the symptom checkers patients bring with them. It focuses on what you personally need to do to use them safely, lawfully and honestly.

The central message is that accountability stays with you. If you approve a note an ambient scribe drafted, it is your note; if a risk tool shapes your decision, the decision is yours. The course explains the specific risks that make this matter, including bias against under-represented groups, hallucinated content and automation bias, and the habits that guard against them.

It is designed to take approximately 2 hours, including reflection and a 15-question assessment, and is self-paced. It covers the UK's principles-based approach to AI regulation, MHRA rules on software as a medical device, NHS England's guidance on ambient scribing and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. Healthcare Practise UK is an independent provider and is not affiliated with any regulator, the MHRA or the NHS.

1. AI and digital health in context. Machine learning, generative AI and ambient voice technology explained plainly; potential benefits; the specific risks; and why accountability does not transfer to a tool.
2. The UK regulatory landscape. The principles-based approach, when AI is a medical device, clinical safety and evidence standards, and data protection rules on automated decisions.
3. Using AI tools safely in practice. Approved tools only and the risk of "shadow AI", forming your own view before reading the output, checking every reference a generative tool suggests, and reporting bias and errors.
4. Consent, transparency and patient trust. Telling patients about AI, introducing an ambient scribe and switching it off when asked or when a patient begins a sensitive disclosure, explaining AI-supported decisions, and advising patients who use chatbots and apps.
5. Records and documentation in a digital world. AI-generated notes are your notes, recording when AI materially influenced a decision, records management codes, subject access and corrections when patients read notes in the NHS App, and data used to develop AI.
6. Governance, security and ethical leadership. Organisational AI policies, the Data Security and Protection Toolkit and phishing, protecting clinical skills against deskilling, and raising concerns, including Yellow Card reports for devices.

A quick-reference guide sets out seven checks, from "Is it approved?" to "Something went wrong?", with phrases such as "I use a secure tool to help with my notes. I check everything it writes. Is that OK with you today?"

Reflection points run through each module. The reflective account at the end asks what you learned about the benefits, risks and regulation of AI, how you will use tools more safely in your own practice, and what you will change about consent, transparency and record keeping.

The 15 scenario questions include a GP pasting a full history into a free public chatbot, a healthcare assistant whose instinct contradicts a low deterioration score, a clinician who approved a scribe note recording no penicillin allergy, and a trainee who has stopped reading chest X-rays herself. The pass mark is 12 (80%), and you can retake after revisiting the relevant sections. You receive a certificate of completion from Healthcare Practise UK.

Record the time you actually spend as CPD and keep your certificate with the reflection. Organisations deploying AI set their own training requirements for specific tools; this course supports general awareness.

Before an ambient scribe rollout. Teams use modules 4 and 5 so that everyone introduces the tool the same way, records objections and reviews drafts line by line. See training for organisations for team accounts.

For digital and governance leads. Modules 2 and 6 give a clinician-level overview of DCB0160, DPIAs and procurement questions to sit alongside formal clinical safety training.

For individual CPD. The reflective account is a practical record for appraisal or revalidation. If an AI-assisted note has caused a records concern, the documentation course covers record standards in more depth; panels make their own decisions about insight and remediation.

• Information Governance and Data Security for Health and Care, for security, sharing and breaches;
• Data Protection and UK GDPR for Healthcare Practices, for lawful bases, DPIAs and rights;
• Remote Consultations and Online Prescribing, for digital-first care and video consultations;
• Human Factors and Diagnostic Error, for cognitive bias, including over-reliance on automation.

See our clinical ethics and law courses, browse the catalogue, or try the which course do I need tool.