AI tools for GP practices in Ireland: the letters that get pasted
It’s rarely the practice software that ends up in a chatbot. It’s the referral a GP wants tightened before it goes to outpatients, the discharge summary a patient has asked to have explained in plain English, the medical report for a solicitor that’s been in the tray since Monday. For most surgeries, AI tools for GP practices in Ireland come down to that: one letter at a time.
Each of those letters opens with the same handful of details. The patient’s name, date of birth, address and Eircode, a mobile, often the PPS number, and on anything from a hospital the MRN. Since March 2022, section 11 of the Health Identifiers Act has told providers to “indicate that identifier in any relevant communication”, so the Individual Health Identifier belongs on the letter as well.
All of that is personal data, and health data carries the extra weight of Article 9: even a number given to a patient for their care counts, as our guide to GDPR patient data explains. The clinical story is a different matter. The history, the examination and what you want the consultant to do are what the model needs if the letter is to be any use.
A GP’s referral notes in ChatGPT: the patient as markers
Highlight the notes and press the key. Every detail Nonimo recognises is swapped for a marker on the practice computer, whether a Mac or a Windows PC, and the originals stay on it, as our security page sets out. When ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot replies using the markers, Nonimo restores the patient’s details in the reply on your screen, because only that computer knows what each marker stands for.
In the invented notes alongside, the patient, the date of birth, the PPS number, the daughter named as next of kin and the email are all covered. The referral can still be written, since the age, the job, the lesion and the warfarin are left as typed. That’s the part the consultant needs, and it’s the part the chat needs to draft a proper letter.
Where a detail’s shape settles what it is, Nonimo swaps it without asking. Where only the heading beside it gives it away, it’s covered on screen with the reason shown, and one click undoes it. Either way the letter stays personal data for the practice, because the practice can reverse it; our guide to special category data explains why.
Before: what gets pasted
Please turn these notes into a referral letter to the dermatology OPD. Patient: A.B. DOB: 30/02/1957 PPSN: 1234567X Next of kin: C.D. (daughter) Email: patient@example.com 69-year-old retired postman. Pigmented lesion on the left shoulder, changed over four months, now 9 mm with an irregular edge. No previous skin cancer. On warfarin.
After: what the AI receives
Please turn these notes into a referral letter to the dermatology OPD. Patient: [PERSON_1] DOB: [BIRTH_DATE_1] PPSN: [REFERENCE_1] Next of kin: [PERSON_2] Email: [EMAIL_1] 69-year-old retired postman. Pigmented lesion on the left shoulder, changed over four months, now 9 mm with an irregular edge. No previous skin cancer. On warfarin.
The Medical Council’s paragraph 25.4, at the keyboard
The Medical Council’s ethics guide for doctors, in force in its ninth edition since 1 January 2024, doesn’t use the word AI. Its chapter on confidentiality is about the information itself, wherever it ends up, and paragraph 25.4, quoted here, puts the duty on the doctor: patient information in your control has to be protected against improper disclosure.
Once a letter is pasted into a chatbot, the practice no longer decides where that copy goes or who reads it. Paragraph 31.4 adds that a doctor sharing information by electronic means should take all reasonable measures to protect confidentiality. In a surgery, a reasonable measure is one that works at the moment of the paste, for the GP, the nurse and reception alike.
The Irish College of GPs was more direct in February 2025, in its paper for general practice: “patient identifiable information must never be entered as a prompt”. Nonimo handles the mechanical side of that on a busy afternoon, with the identifiers it recognises out before the letter goes. How the main assistants compare under Irish data protection law is set out in which AI is GDPR compliant.
The price, and which computer in the surgery goes first
You can begin with a single computer in the practice, Mac or Windows. Nonimo’s free plan stops at a set number of words each month. Leave an email address on our licence page and a free licence file comes back that removes the cap until 31 January 2027, with no account to set up. The download sits at the head of this page.
Plenty of AI tools for GP practices in Ireland will draft the letter for you. Nonimo doesn’t compete with them; it works in front of whichever one the practice has chosen. The app goes on each computer separately, and for the whole building your IT support can roll out a browser extension by policy that covers text without the key; organisations has the detail.
Start where the letters get written: the GP’s consulting room and the practice manager’s desk. A good first test is an old referral from last year’s files: highlight it, press the key and look at what the chat would have received. Show that before and after at the next practice meeting, and reception can follow the same week.
- Free today, on Mac and Windows
- With a monthly word allowance
- The free licence lifts it until 31 January 2027, no account needed
Questions practice managers and GPs ask us
Are AI tools for GP practices in Ireland lawful with patient letters?
Yes, with care: the GDPR follows every detail you paste, and health data sits under Article 9 with extra conditions. Nothing in Irish law bans a practice from using ChatGPT or Copilot, and the Medical Council's ethics guide never uses the word AI; it asks you to protect patient information in your control. Nonimo covers the patient's name, date of birth, PPS number and contact details on the practice computer first.
Does Nonimo pick up the IHI and the hospital MRN?
The MRN, yes. Today it's covered when it follows its heading directly, as in MRN or Medical record number, and from the next version it carries an MRN marker of its own. The Individual Health Identifier is recognised from its form alone from the next version on; this version leaves it as typed. Whichever version you run, every change shows on screen before you paste.
Where does the Irish College of GPs stand on ChatGPT?
It hasn't banned it. The College's paper of February 2025 tells doctors that “patient identifiable information must never be entered as a prompt”, since whatever the tool stores could end up breaching confidentiality. That's guidance from the College rather than law, but it's the sentence a complaint would quote back at a GP. Nonimo takes out the identifiers it recognises before the prompt leaves the surgery.
Does it matter which ChatGPT plan the surgery is on?
Yes. A personal ChatGPT account comes with consumer terms and no processor contract with the practice; a business plan brings a data processing agreement, and only then does the provider act on the practice's instructions. Nonimo works in front of either, in the browser the practice already has open, whether that's ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot, so the details it recognises are covered before any account sees them.
What does Nonimo send to you from the practice?
Nothing from the letters. Nonimo does its work on the computer where the text is selected, so no word about your patients, and none of the terms you add to your own list, ever reaches us. What we do receive is a daily usage count: the share of the monthly allowance used, the app version and the platform. That count is always on, our security page lists its fields, and no account with us is needed.