Issue 02 — The free tool that turns your team's knowledge into instant answers

Last week I left you with a tease.

A tool that can transform the way your team accesses information. If you have been wondering what it was — this is it.

The Problem Nobody Talks About

There is a specific kind of peace that comes from knowing your team can find the answers they need without you.

Not because you have abandoned them. Because you have built something that holds the knowledge for them. A database of everything they need — your SOPs, your referral pathways, your equipment lists, your FAQs — accessible the moment they need it, without anyone having to interrupt you to get it.

Every senior clinician knows what that kind of focus feels like on the rare days it happens. NotebookLM is the tool that can make it the norm rather than the exception.

Here is the reality. A junior staff member asking you where to refer a patient, whether they can order a hospital bed, or what the annual leave policy is — each one sounds like a five minute question. But finding the information, explaining it, and showing them where it lives takes closer to ten. Have five of those in a day and you have lost fifty minutes of your working hours to questions that already have answers written down somewhere.

The problem is nobody can find where that answer lives.

NotebookLM fixes that.

What NotebookLM Actually Is

NotebookLM is a free tool from Google that lets you build your own knowledge base from your own documents. You upload your sources — SOPs, referral criteria, guidelines, policies, YouTube videos, websites — and then you or your team can ask it questions in plain English.

Here is what makes it different from ChatGPT or any other AI tool. It only answers from what you have uploaded. It cannot go beyond your sources. Which means it cannot hallucinate. If the answer is not in your documents it will tell you it does not know rather than making something up.

For a clinical setting that matters more than almost anything else.

Setting It Up

It takes less than five minutes to create your first notebook.

Go to notebooklm.google.com. You will need a Google account. Tap Create New at the bottom of the screen.

You will then see options to upload your sources — PDF, audio, image, website, YouTube video, or copied text.

Upload whatever is most relevant to you or your team. Once your sources are uploaded you are taken to your notebook where you can start asking questions immediately. NotebookLM will even suggest questions to get you started.

That is it. No technical setup. No IT approval needed for your own personal use.

What To Upload

The more specific and relevant your sources the better the answers. For a clinical team consider uploading your service SOP, your local referral criteria and pathways, your equipment ordering guidance, your team FAQ document if you have one, relevant NICE guidelines, and any training materials you regularly point junior staff toward.

Here are five questions a junior clinician might ask your NotebookLM:

What community services are available locally for a patient aged 65 who wants social interaction with their age group.

What is the current NICE guidance on frailty and managing X medical condition in the community.

What pathway should I follow for a patient with complex care needs.

What is the escalation process if I am concerned about a patient deteriorating.

What is the process to create an account with the equipment provider.

Every one of those questions has an answer that exists somewhere in your service documentation. NotebookLM puts all of that documentation in one place and makes it instantly searchable.

I Tested It On My Own Template

I uploaded the Clinically Intelligent Social History Template — the one from Issue 01 — into NotebookLM and asked it a question.

How does this template assist NHS Occupational Therapists with documentation?

Here is what came back.

This template assists

NHS Occupational Therapists by acting as a structured guide for an AI tool like Claude to function as a clinical documentation assistant. Created by a Band 7 NHS Occupational Therapist, it helps streamline the process of writing up social history assessments for Electronic Patient Records.

It then listed exactly how the template works, referenced the source so I could verify where the answer came from, and pulled out the IG guidance without being asked.

Accurate. Referenced. Concise. In seconds.

Then I clicked into the Studio section and asked it to generate an infographic from the same document.

I did not design that. I did not brief a designer. I uploaded a document and clicked a button.

The Studio Section

This is where NotebookLM goes beyond a simple question and answer tool.

Tap Studio at the bottom of your notebook and you will see a list of things you can generate from your uploaded sources. Audio Overview — a conversational podcast style summary of your content. Video Overview. Flashcards. Quiz. Infographic. Slide Deck.

I want to be honest about my first reaction to the audio feature.

I clicked it expecting what AI audio usually sounds like. Robotic. Flat. A voice reading information back at you like a slightly more enthusiastic version of your EPR system.

What I got was a nine minute podcast. Two voices having an actual conversation about the content I had uploaded. Natural. Engaging. The kind of thing you would listen to on your commute without realising you were studying.

I have spent hours reading different articles and watching different YouTube videos on the same topic, each one overlapping with the last, trying to pull out the parts that are actually relevant to my practice. NotebookLM took those same sources and turned them into something my brain could absorb while I made a lemon and ginger tea.

For a profession that asks you to stay current with evidence while managing a full caseload that is not a small thing.

You can also customise the studio output for your specific audience by giving it a prompt before it generates. The generic output gives a solid overview but a tailored prompt produces something much more specific and useful.

The Limitations — And Why They Matter

NotebookLM is built on what Google describes as safe AI principles. In practice this means it can be overly cautious with medical content. If you upload clinical documents, keep them clear and concise rather than graphic or highly technical.

If you upload two documents that contradict each other NotebookLM may default to whichever was uploaded first or tell you the sources conflict. Keep your knowledge base consistent and up to date.

Unlike Google Docs you cannot collaborate in real time. If two people are adding sources simultaneously you may get syncing errors. One person should manage the knowledge base.

Most importantly and this is the limitation that is also its greatest strength — NotebookLM only knows what you have told it. If your SOP is outdated the answers will be outdated. The tool requires someone to keep the knowledge base current. That responsibility sits with you not the AI.

IG Guidance — Can I Use NotebookLM at Work

Yes. NotebookLM sits firmly in Zone 1 of the IG framework from Issue 01. You are uploading your own documents — SOPs, referral pathways, guidelines, policies — none of which contain identifiable patient information. There is no patient data involved and no IG risk in using it for this purpose.

One thing worth checking. Some Trust documents may reference patient cases as examples or contain identifiable staff information. Before uploading anything to NotebookLM scan it quickly and remove anything that could identify an individual. The same rule applies here as everywhere else in this newsletter. If in doubt take it out.

For your own personal learning use — uploading a NICE guideline, a YouTube video, a research paper — there is no question at all. Completely safe. Go ahead.

Where To Start This Week

Do not try to build your entire team knowledge base today. Start small.

Find one YouTube video or document you have been meaning to engage with but have not had time for. A NICE guideline update. A conference talk. A training resource. Upload it to a new notebook and ask it three questions.

That one action takes less than ten minutes and will show you more about what this tool can do than anything I have written here.

Before you start — Two prompts worth saving.

The first one is for Claude, to help you plan what to upload before you start. The second is for when you are inside NotebookLM and want better studio output.

Prompt one — Knowledge Base Planning:

You are creating content for a team of NHS [team/service] working in [clinical setting]. The audience has limited time and needs practical, jargon free information they can apply immediately. Make it sound like advice from a senior clinician not a textbook. Please generate the audio overview with this audience in mind.

Prompt two — Knowledge Base Planning:

I am a [job title] working in [setting]. I want to build a NotebookLM knowledge base to reduce the number of repeated questions my junior staff ask me. Suggest ten types of documents I should upload, and for each one give me a practical example of what that document might look like in an NHS setting.

Opinion

The NHS spends significant money on induction programmes, training days, and mandatory learning modules. Most of it sits in folders nobody can find, presented in formats nobody wants to engage with.

NotebookLM does not replace good training. But it makes the knowledge that already exists in your service genuinely accessible for the first time. That is not a technology problem being solved. That is a knowledge management problem that has existed in the NHS for decades.

The irony is that the solution is free, takes five minutes to set up and is available to every clinician with a Google account right now.

The question is not whether your Trust will eventually adopt something like this. They will. The question is whether you will have been using it for two years by the time they do.

In Case You Missed It

Three stories from the past few months that are worth knowing about if you have not already seen them. The digital space moves fast and not everything makes mainstream news.

NHS Palantir Data Concerns — The Guardian reported this week that NHS staff have raised concerns after Palantir engineers were found to have access to NHS email accounts. Palantir holds a significant contract with the NHS for the Federated Data Platform. The story has prompted questions about data governance and oversight arrangements for third party contractors working within NHS systems. No formal response has been issued at the time of writing. Worth following as more details emerge. Source: The Guardian, 8 April 2026.

NHS and AI in Mental Health — The NHS Confederation has launched a new partnership with Limbic to explore the role of AI in mental health services, with a focus on responsible governance and patient safety. The partnership will produce a practical user guide for NHS members on AI adoption in mental health settings. Relevant if you work in or alongside mental health services. NHS and AI in Mental Health — Source: NHS Confederation, December 2025.

MHRA AI Regulation Commission — The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has established a national commission to review current AI regulations in healthcare and develop a new regulatory framework. Recommendations are expected to be published this year. This will directly affect how AI tools are deployed clinically. Worth understanding before it lands. MHRA AI Regulation Commission — Source: House of Lords Library, December 2025.

That is all for Issue 02. Every week I will bring you something practical you can use and a view on where this space is heading. Next week we look at the tool your research has been missing — and why what you think you know about AI search is probably wrong. If someone you know would find this useful, pass it on.