TL;DR

AI transcription tools used by UK social workers are producing hallucinations in official care records, including a false indication of suicidal ideation. An eight-month study by the Ada Lovelace Institute across 17 English and Scottish councils found “potentially harmful misrepresentations” entering official care documentation.

Hallucinations in care records

Dozens of councils from Croydon to Redcar and Cleveland have given social workers access to AI transcription tools that record and summarise case conversations. The technology was championed by Keir Starmer last year as “incredible” time-saving technology.

But the Ada Lovelace study, based on interviews with 39 social workers, found the tools are producing concerning errors. One social worker reported that an AI transcription tool incorrectly “indicated that there was suicidal ideation” when the client had never discussed it. Another described outputs referring to “fishfingers or flies or trees” when a child was actually talking about their parents fighting.

Social workers reported spending anywhere from two minutes to an hour checking AI-generated transcripts. One described simply taking “five minutes to literally just quickly screen it and then cut and paste it on to the system.” Some said colleagues were “too lazy or busy” to check properly.

Systemic concerns

The British Association of Social Workers reported that disciplinary action has already occurred where workers failed to properly check AI outputs and missed obvious errors. Training is often minimal — just an hour in one case.

Andrew Reece, BASW strategic lead, warned: “The time you spend writing helps you make sense of what you have heard. If the computer is doing that for you, you’re missing out on the important parts of reflective practice.”

The study did find AI transcription delivered observable time savings and freed social workers to focus more on relationships with service users — a real benefit for councils facing chronic staff shortages.

Looking forward

The findings put a spotlight on the gap between AI deployment speed and the governance needed to use it safely in high-stakes settings. As more councils adopt these tools, clear regulatory guidance on AI use in social work is becoming urgent.