Using Siri to record and play journal entries for the blind

I am looking for a way for an elderly blind woman to use Siri to record and play journal entries without needing to unlock her iPhone SE. Her iPhone has been updated to iOS26. My 90-year old mother recently lost her eye-sight in a traffic accident, and would like to continue her practice of recording her thoughts in a journal. We’ve been practicing using Siri on her HomePod mini to act as a digital personal assistant. She is familiar with using her HomePod mini to ask Siri to make phone calls and other personal requests. I was able to create a Siri Shortcuts to record a voice memo as a journal entry. I made another Siri Shortcut to play the voice memo, however the HomePod will not play the recorded voice memo without requiring unlocking the iphone, which my mother is unable to do (iphone is tethered to a table in my mother’s room in a care facility and not easily accessed, especially by someone who can’t see). In an ideal world, she could request Siri to playback all of the recorded voice memos starting with the most recent recording. I’m not sure if using Voice Memo is the best way to go about this, or whether a 3rd party journal app could be easily accessed using Siri and the HomePod mini. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I haven’t been able to find a working solution thus far. Thanks in advance!