AI can help patients put concerns into words, but some GP practices are receiving complaints so long and complex that staff say they are harder to answer. The Medical Protection Society says its survey found that 45 per cent of nearly 160 UK practice managers had seen AI-drafted complaints add to workload pressures and affect staff morale.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
The Independent reports that some letters run to 20 pages or more. The Medical Protection Society, which provides legal and indemnity advice to health workers, says its members are seeking support with complaints that can include questionable legal arguments and leave patients’ concerns harder to identify.
The Royal College of GPs says patients have the right to complain, and that complaints can help improve services. It also warns that AI can produce unnecessarily lengthy or inaccurate material. Guidance from the Public Service Ombudsman advises patients to explain simply what happened, and not to ask AI to add legal arguments or make a complaint sound more official.
Why it matters
The useful distinction is between helping someone communicate and making their letter sound like a legal filing. Clear, specific complaints are easier for practices to investigate, while lengthy AI-generated text may create extra work without making the underlying concern clearer. The MPS figures describe what practice managers reported; they do not show that every AI-assisted complaint is a problem.
There is a balance here. AI may help people who face language, health or confidence barriers to writing. The answer cannot be to dismiss complaints because a tool helped draft them. But a longer letter is not automatically a stronger one, and nobody needs a machine to add a few layers of legal-sounding fog.
Our read
Use AI as an editor, not a complaint-inflation machine. Ask it to help make the account clear and organised, check the result yourself, and leave out legal claims you cannot support. Practices still need to consider each complaint fairly, whether it was written by a person, a tool or a particularly enthusiastic combination of the two.
What to watch
- Whether the Public Service Ombudsman’s guidance is shared more widely with patients.
- Whether practice managers report changes in complaint volume and the time needed to respond.
- Whether complaint processes become clearer and more accessible without treating AI use as a reason to discount a patient’s concerns.
Discussion spark: Should AI-assisted complaints be judged by the clarity of the concern they raise, or should practices also take account of the extra work lengthy, AI-generated letters can create?
Sources and evidence
- Source update (12 October 2026, 07:23 UTC)
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