The short answer
Heidi is a general medical AI scribe with a free plan and wide NHS use. Its dental templates cover extractions, restorations, crown preps and hygiene visits. A dental-specific scribe such as Squte is built around the UK dental note instead: 17 sections in a fixed order, UK tooth notation (UR6) and BPE scores.
If you want to start free, or one scribe for a clinic with doctors and other professions, Heidi is worth trying. If you want every note shaped like a UK dental record, with consent asked and saved at each visit, a dental scribe is the closer fit.
General or dental-specific: what changes
Heidi is used widely in the NHS. In July 2026 the NHS in the Midlands bought Heidi’s ambient voice technology for 15 acute and community trusts and all 1,239 GP practices in the region (HTN, 15 July 2026). PortmanDentex, the UK’s second-largest dental group, announced a two-year partnership with Heidi in April 2026 (Digital Health).
A general scribe has to serve every profession, so dental notes come from templates you pick or build. A dental scribe starts from the dental record: why the patient came, the history, the examination by tooth, what was discussed, what they chose, what was done, and when they come back. Both need you to check every note before you sign it.
Side by side
Heidi’s column uses only what Heidi publishes, read on 21 October 2026. We haven’t tested Heidi’s notes ourselves, so this compares published terms, not note quality.
| Question | Heidi | Squte |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A general medical AI scribe for many professions, with a dentistry page and dental templates. | An AI dental scribe built only for UK dentists, hygienists and therapists. |
| Free plan | Yes: unlimited transcription and standard templates. Advanced templates and Ask Heidi are limited. | No free plan. A free trial of 14 days or 100 visits, whichever comes first. |
| Paid price | Clinician £70 a month, or £55 a month billed yearly. Practice £65 per user a month, billed yearly. Enterprise priced on request. | £25, £45 or £79 per clinician a month. Essential is £39 and Pro £69 a month billed yearly. |
| VAT | Not stated on the UK pricing page. | None to add. Squte is not VAT-registered, so the price you see is the full price. |
| Trial | 14 days on Clinician and Practice. Whether a card is needed is not stated. | 14 days or 100 visits, whichever comes first. Card required; nothing is charged during the trial. |
| Dental notes | Templates for extractions, restorations, crown preps, hygiene visits and specialist consults, plus community templates such as a dental examination and new patient assessment. | The UK 17-section dental note for every appointment, from chief complaint to plan and recall. |
| Tooth numbers | Not stated on the dentistry page. | UK tooth notation from what you say: “upper right six” becomes UR6 (or 16, if you choose FDI). |
| Practice software | No dental practice system is named. An EHR integration add-on is offered on paid plans. | Copy the signed note into Dentally, Software of Excellence or R4 in one go. No direct integration yet. |
| Consent | The dentistry page says consent context is captured from the session. No consent log is described. | A consent line to read before each recording. The patient’s answer is saved with the visit: the wording used, how it was given and the time. Squte will not transcribe a visit without it. |
| Audio | Not saved: Heidi says audio is discarded as it transcribes. | Audio is deleted 30 days after the note is signed. The signed note and transcript stay as the clinical record. |
| Where data is kept | Heidi says UK data is hosted within the UK. No provider or region is named. | Stored encrypted on AWS in London. Speech recognition on Deepgram’s EU service; note writing on Google’s EU endpoint. |
| Training on your data | Heidi says it doesn’t use your data to train its AI. | Not used to train AI models. |
| NHS AVT registry | Listed on NHS England’s self-certified ambient voice technology registry (HTN, July 2026). | Not yet listed. NHS England says it does not endorse the suppliers on the registry. |
| Security certificates | Says it is Cyber Essentials certified and follows DTAC and the Data Security and Protection Toolkit. | None yet. We will list each certificate here once it is awarded. |
Heidi sources: UK pricing, Heidi for dentists, UK compliance, safety; registry listing from HTN. Squte: pricing and patient data. Whether VAT changes what you pay is explained in the true cost after VAT.
When Heidi may suit you better
- You want to start free: Heidi’s free plan includes unlimited transcription with standard templates.
- Your clinic has doctors, physiotherapists or other professions as well as dentists, and you want one scribe.
- Your dental group already uses Heidi, or you work in an NHS trust that does.
- You like to build and share your own templates across a team.
- You want no audio kept at all: Heidi says it discards audio as it transcribes.
When a dental-specific scribe may suit you better
- You want every note in the UK dental order without choosing or building templates.
- You say tooth positions out loud and want UK tooth notation in the note.
- You want the consent line read and the patient’s answer saved with every visit.
- You want to know the full price up front: Squte’s has no VAT to add.
The quickest way to judge is to read a note. See a sample Squte note, then try both on your own appointments.
How we made this page
We read Heidi’s UK pricing, dentistry, UK compliance and safety pages on 21 October 2026. Heidi’s UK prices are in the pricing page’s price data; the page doesn’t show a VAT status. None of these pages shows a date, so terms may have changed since. We check them every month and date each change below.
Heidi is a trade mark of Heidi Health. Squte is not connected with Heidi Health. For more tools, see UK AI dental scribes compared.
Changes
- : first published.
Heidi team: if anything here is wrong or out of date, email hello@squte.co.uk and we fix verified errors within five working days.
Read next
- UK AI dental scribes compared →Published prices, VAT, what a VAT-exempt practice pays, and trial terms of AI notes tools UK dentists use, each linked to its source.
- The true cost of an AI scribe after VAT →Why most dental practices pay 20% more than a “+ VAT” price, with worked examples from published prices.
- Sample note →An illustration of a full 17-section note for a made-up patient, step by step: consent, recording, the note, a change by voice and signing.
Try it on your own appointments.
Squte is an AI dental scribe for UK dentists. It asks the patient’s consent, records the appointment and drafts a UK 17-section clinical note for the dentist to check, change by voice and sign.
14 days or 100 visits, whichever comes first. Card required, and nothing is charged during the trial. Then from £25 a month, no VAT to add. Cancel before the trial ends and you pay nothing.
General information, not legal, clinical or tax advice. Squte makes AI dental scribe software, so we have an interest in this subject; every fact above links to its source. How we write. Found an error? Email hello@squte.co.uk and we correct verified errors within five working days.