AI in primary care - are we ready?

You're running late. There's a stack of tasks to action, results that need filing, and your next complex patient has just arrived early. One of your colleagues pops in and says: "Have you tried that AI scribe thing? You know it does all your consultation notes for you..."

AI is creeping into general practice from every direction, and it's not always clear what's safe, what's useful and what's a liability waiting to happen.

It's already here…

According to the Nuffield Trust and RCGP, one in four GPs are already using AI tools. Ambient scribes, document summarisation, clinical decision support. Some of it is formally approved tools. Some of it is a free ChatGPT account and hoping for the best!

And it's not just clinicians. King's College London found that 15% of the public have used AI chatbots for health advice instead of contacting their GP. Some of your patients may have consulted a chatbot before they consulted you. Others will do so on the way home, looking for reassurance or a different answer.

So where does that leave us? The use of AI raises some tricky questions in general practice. Where does your data go when you type it into a chatbot? Who's accountable when an AI output or decision turns out to be wrong? And what does the CQC expect you to have in place as a practice? We'll be answering these questions in our upcoming webinar (more on that below).

AI for learning

While the difficult governance questions around clinical use of AI are still being worked through, there is one area of healthcare where AI is already adding real value - education.

Ask Archie is NB Medical's AI-powered learning tool for primary care professionals. You type a clinical question and get a clear, evidence-based answer drawn exclusively from NB Medical's trusted, GP developed content. Every response is fully referenced with clickable source links, so you can check the evidence yourself.

Unlike a general chatbot, Ask Archie doesn't search the open internet or fill gaps by guessing. If it doesn't have a reliable answer, it says so. It's designed for learning and CPD, not for making clinical decisions in the consulting room. Ask Archie available as part of an NB Plus subscription, alongside over 100 hours of CPD, live webinars and digital course books.

But AI isn't just changing how we access clinical knowledge. It's also changing how we can practise putting that knowledge into action.

Simulation has always been an important part of medical education, but traditionally it can be difficult and resource-intensive to deliver at scale. SimChat, developed by the team at Geeky Medics, uses generative AI to make realistic simulation available on demand. Learners choose from over 1,000 clinical scenarios and practise consultations with a lifelike AI avatar, receiving personalised feedback after every conversation. Educators can also create custom scenarios from their own materials in minutes.

NHS organisations and medical schools already use SimChat to deliver simulation training, with more than 800,000 consultations completed so far. The platform includes 200+ GP consultation scenarios mapped to the RCGP SCA curriculum for GP registrar training. Educators interested in using SimChat can create a free account to try it.

SimChat | AI-Powered Avatar Simulation | Simulated Patients 

Learn more in our free Hot Topics webinar

If you want to get up to speed with AI in primary care, we're running a free webinar: Hot Topics: Introduction to AI in Primary Care on 15 September 2026, a joint collaboration between NB Medical and the Geeky Medics team. It's a practical, plain English evening session for primary care clinicians who want to get to grips with AI. We hope to see you there.