When a cardiologist says an AI tool gives him enough time to see an extra patient each morning, it's worth paying attention.
That is one of the findings coming out of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, which signed a three-year deal with Microsoft to roll out Microsoft 365 Copilot to 8,000 staff across its ten Greater Manchester hospitals, covering all corporate staff and roughly 1,600 frontline workers.
The trust is also setting up what it calls an Agent Factory: an internal team that will build and run its own AI automation tools, rather than relying on off-the-shelf products.
Want to know more about how the NHS is using Microsoft Copilot? Read our coverage of the 2025 NHS-wide Copilot trial.
How Microsoft 365 Copilot is being used across the trust
The rollout targets back-office functions first. AI agents already handle routine HR queries, support parts of recruitment, and assist finance teams with forecasting. Early pilots suggest some of those tasks now take half as long.
MFT CEO Mark Cubbon said:
"Our collaboration with Microsoft is about using AI to improve the way we work, streamlining administrative processes, reducing the potential for human error in some high-volume tasks, and reinvesting time and resources to support direct patient care."
What the Agent Factory means for other organisations
Rather than buying ready-made tools, MFT is building the capability to create its own agents for specific tasks across administration, finance and information governance. Human sign-off is required before any automated process completes.
For IT leaders elsewhere, this is the part of the announcement that deserves attention. Microsoft has been accelerating its agentic AI push across M365 and the organisations moving quickest are building internal development capability rather than waiting for vendors to ship something that fits. If your organisation is still evaluating, MFT is already three years into a delivery plan.
The clinical case: What Dragon Copilot showed
Before this expansion, MFT spent 18 months running Dragon Copilot with hundreds of clinicians. The tool records consultations and writes up clinical notes automatically. Clinicians said it let them "concentrate on the interaction itself rather than the notes, improving the quality of consultations," backed up by a Microsoft-commissioned survey which found 40% of patients felt their clinician was too focused on a screen during appointments.
