‍From paperwork to people: what we learned from Kent County Council’s Notes pilot

‍Introduction 

A typical assessment visit for a social care professional involves two conversations.

The first is with the person they are there to support. The second is with their laptop.

Practitioners are often trying to listen carefully, ask the right questions and build trust while also typing notes fast enough to capture every important detail. It is a difficult balance, and one that many say pulls their attention away from the person in front of them.

Administrative work has become one of the biggest pressures in social care. Many practitioners spend more than half their working day on documentation, case recording and IT entry.

Kent County Council wanted to explore whether technology could help shift that balance. They piloted Notes, Beam’s AI note-taking tool designed specifically for frontline services.

Today we are sharing the results of that pilot, which have been independently evaluated by Unity Insights.

‍The human impact: more time for care

During the eight-week pilot, 29 staff members at Kent County Council used Notes for care needs assessments, occupational therapy assessments, and general case recording. In total, 366 recordings were made, representing 169 hours of conversations.

Staff used Notes to record assessment meetings and organise information within structured templates, including Care Needs Assessments and Occupational Therapy Assessments. This allowed practitioners to focus on the individual rather than on typing notes in real time.

As a result, staff reported that they were more able to capture important details, ask follow up questions and fully engage in the conversation. Practitioners also found the tool easy to use, and people drawing on care and support were comfortable with the technology being used during meetings.

The findings suggest that Notes not only saved time, but it also improved the quality of documentation and the interactions that shape assessments.

‍

What practitioners said

The feedback from practitioners highlighted how the tool affected both the quality of documentation and the quality of the interaction.

“Notes has improved the quality of my assessment as I have been able to converse with the client more effectively. The information captured has been much more detailed than I would have been able to record while taking notes myself.” - Occupational therapist

“I found Notes could be tailored to how I work. It was very easy to amend any errors. Overall I found it very good at producing a first draft and excellent for summarising the visit.” - Occupational therapist

The results suggest that reducing the administrative burden does not only save time. It can also improve the quality of assessments and the conversations that shape them.

From pilot to rollout

Since the pilot, Kent County Council has rolled out Notes to 1,100 social care staff. This wider rollout creates an opportunity to gather even more robust data on the tool’s impact.

For example, how practitioners use the time saved. Are they completing more assessments, reducing time spent on after hours admin, or spending more time supporting people directly?

Alongside this quantitative data, we are also gathering feedback from supervisors and frontline practitioners to better understand benefits that are harder to measure, such as improvements in morale, documentation quality and practitioner confidence.

Early indications suggest that reducing administrative burden can help practitioners focus more of their time on the people they support, while enabling councils to deliver services more efficiently within existing resources.

Why we took part in this process

Introducing AI into frontline public services requires trust. That means being transparent about how tools are tested, what impact they have and where improvements are still needed.

That is why we partnered with Unity Insights to independently evaluate the Kent County Council pilot. Independent validation helps ensure that the findings are credible, rigorous and useful to other organisations considering similar technology.

As more public services explore how AI can support their workforce, building a strong evidence base will be essential. We are proud that Kent County Council chose to take part in this process and contribute to that growing body of knowledge.

Check out the full case study here.