Standing on the Royal Festival Hall Stage: How Heidi’s AI Scribe Technology Helped Us Win Innovation of the Year
An amazing moment — and one I’ll remember for a very long time.
As Digital Navigator with City Health Care Partnership CIC, I spent 2025 working closely with the Frailty team at the Jean Bishop Integrated Care Centre in East Hull to introduce and integrate ambient voice AI scribe technology into everyday clinical practice.
It’s been hands‑on, human‑centred work: supporting clinicians, building confidence, smoothing the edges of change, and helping a genuinely transformative tool settle into a busy environment with calm and clarity.
To stand on stage at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, as part of the team receiving the Social Enterprise Innovation of the Year 2025 award, felt extraordinary. We nailed it — and it meant more than I expected. Overwhelming, emotional, exciting. Glorious!
This wasn’t just a trophy moment. Our project was recognised for the way it quietly reshaped how clinicians work, how frail and vulnerable patients are supported, and how technology can serve people when it’s introduced with care, trust, and psychological safety.
It was a celebration of a team who believed in doing things properly — not chasing hype, but embedding something genuinely useful.
And yes… it was also the most amazing “do” I’ve ever been to.
Social Enterprise UK certainly know how to put on an awards night!
What This Award Really Represents
For all the excitement of the evening, the deeper meaning sits in the work behind it:
- A frontline service willing to innovate in a way that protects time, attention, and dignity for both staff and patients.
- A clinical champion whose belief and leadership made the project possible.
- A collaborative partnership with the Heidi team, built on transparency, trust, and shared purpose.
- A model of practical AI adoption that shows what’s possible when technology is introduced with empathy rather than pressure.
Innovation in healthcare is rarely glamorous. It’s often slow, relational, and quietly persistent. This award shone a light on that quieter truth — and on the people who make it happen.
I always refer back to the 3 pillars of successful digital innovation. In fact, it's a Venn diagram isn't it?
People. Process. Technology.
And Successful Digital Innovation sits at the heart of those 3 elements.
A Turning Point in My Own Work
This project has been a defining part of my time as Digital Navigator.
It brought together everything I care about:
- responsible AI
- psychologically safe adoption
- and supporting people through change with clarity and calm
AI succeeds when leaders create the right conditions — not when they chase the newest tool.This award moment felt like a public acknowledgement of that philosophy.
The Start of a Short Series
This post is the first in a small series exploring the Heidi project from different angles — the day-after visit to the Heidi team in London, the case study filming, and the leadership lessons that emerged along the way.
Each moment tells part of the story of how thoughtful, human-led innovation can ripple far beyond a single service.
Cheers, Sue x