WAJD Learning

AI and digital practice for nurses · Registered nurses, nursing associates, student nurses and nursing support staff

AI in nursing practice: safe, lawful and accountable use

What these tools get wrong, what the NMC Code asks of you when you use them, and what to check before you sign.

  • 3modules
  • 2.5CPD hours
  • 150guided minutes
  • Freeto study

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About this course

AI tools are arriving in the NHS and in social care at scale. NHS England announced in June 2026 that an AI assistant would be made available to some 505,000 clinicians and support staff, and AI scribes are already drafting clinical records in many settings. Surveys of nurses keep finding the same thing: use is rising faster than training.

This course gives you the part nobody else will: what these tools actually do, the specific ways they fail, and what your professional duties require when one of them has helped write something with your name on it. It is built on the NMC Code, the NHS England guidance on AI scribes and the MHRA's clarification of when such a product is a medical device, all of which you can read yourself and all of which are listed beside each module.

It is not a course about a product and it will not date when your employer changes supplier. It ends with confidentiality, bias and speaking up, because the questions that matter most are usually not technical ones.

What you will be able to do

  • Explain in plain terms what a generative AI tool does and why it can be fluent and wrong
  • Recognise automation bias in yourself and your team
  • Apply the NMC Code to a record that an AI tool helped draft
  • Check an AI-drafted note for the errors that matter most, including what is missing
  • Explain what NHS England's guidance and the MHRA's statement require of organisations and clinicians
  • Tell a patient clearly and honestly when an AI tool is being used
  • Keep identifiable information out of tools your organisation has not approved
  • Recognise where bias can enter an AI tool and say so when you see it
  • Know how to report an error or a concern, and where it goes

Modules

  1. 1 What AI actually is on your ward, and how it gets things wrong 50 min study · 5 min script · 5 question knowledge check
  2. 2 AI scribes and drafted records: what to check, and what to tell patients 50 min study · 4 min script · 5 question knowledge check
  3. 3 Confidentiality, bias and speaking up: using AI without breaking trust 50 min study · 4 min script · 5 question knowledge check

Assessment and certificate

Knowledge check after each module and a final assessment at 80 per cent, with unlimited attempts.

A digital certificate, issued the moment you have passed and paid, showing 2.5 CPD hours with a verification code. It evidences knowledge of safe and accountable use of AI tools in nursing. It is not a regulated qualification, it does not authorise you to use any particular tool, and your employer's own training and policies still apply.

Questions

Does the NMC say whether nurses may use AI?

The NMC has not issued a rule that bans or permits a particular tool. What it has is the Code, which applies whatever you use: keep accurate records, attribute your entries to yourself, protect confidentiality, keep your knowledge up to date and reduce the likelihood of harm. It has said it will consult on a new Code from September to December 2026 and that digital and AI technologies are one of the areas it will cover.

If an AI scribe wrote the note and it is wrong, whose error is it?

NHS England's guidance says the practitioner has an ongoing responsibility to review and revise the output, and that the organisation may still be liable for claims. Under the Code you attribute entries to yourself, so a note you accept is a note you have made. That is why this course spends so long on what to check.

Can I paste a patient's details into a free AI tool to get help writing a letter?

Not unless your organisation has approved that tool for that use. A tool you choose yourself is not covered by your organisation's data protection arrangements, and information that identifies a patient is more than a name. The third module explains what counts, and what to do if you have already done it.

Is this course a substitute for my employer's training?

No. It teaches the transferable duties and the failure modes that apply to any tool. Your employer's training teaches the specific tool, its approved uses, and its local safety case. You need both.