“Lifting the Mental Load” — How a Leading Mental Health Clinic in Edinburgh Is Using AI to Redefine Clinical Care
Background: A practice built on care and innovation
Located in the heart of Edinburgh, The Edinburgh Practice has grown into one of Scotland’s leading independent mental health services, offering psychiatry, psychology and neurodiversity assessments with a team of nearly 50 clinicians.
Under Hazel Monteith, Head of Growth & Operations the practice has embraced technology to improve both efficiency and quality of care. From embracing leading PMS Semble to becoming fully paper-free, every new system is chosen to reduce administrative burden and enhance the patient experience.
“We wanted to make our processes more efficient while keeping the highest clinical standards,” Hazel explains. “Every change we make should help clinicians spend more time focusing on their clients, not paperwork.”
The Challenge: Administrative overload and compliance pressure
Before modernising its workflows, the practice relied heavily on manual processes. Many clinicians still wrote notes by hand, which had to be scanned and uploaded to patient records. Even those typing digitally often spent hours each evening catching up on notes.
“When I started, around 60% of our clinicians were handwriting notes,” Hazel recalls. “We’ve completely moved away from that now, but it showed us how much time was being lost to admin.”
Many clinicians work in the NHS as well as privately and any extra administrative work cuts directly into their day — limiting appointment availability and overall productivity. And as a service, every patient record must meet detailed compliance standards.
