The old-fashioned dictate-and-type technique is being ditched for digitisation - to halve the time for letters to reach patients.

The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital is to officially implement "Dictate IT Swift" across all departments following a trial.

Clinicians can dictate using an app on their phone or via a desktop to create a transcript, which can be viewed by staff within a minute of a dictation being completed.

The transcript will then be checked, edited and verified before being sent out to patients in the post.

The current process sees letters typed manually by administration staff from dictations on a voice recorder.

The trial began a year ago across the trust's medical, women and children and surgical divisions and will be brought across all departments in the coming months.

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Oncology medical secretary Rachel Pannell said: "It saves a lot of time. It might not be word-perfect but most of the time it’s easy to work out what was meant.

"It also knows loads of medical words and I don’t have to wait until the clinic is finished for Dan [Holyoake, clinical oncology consultant] to dock his dictaphone now.”