Between patients, the clinicians were answering enquiries, chasing pre-appointment forms and ringing people about results, because there was no one else to do it. Forms arrived half complete, results follow-up depended on someone remembering, and the enquiry that arrived at 7pm waited until morning. The clinic wanted the administrative half of the day done properly, and the clinicians seeing patients.
Three things kept going wrong, and each cost the business time, money or a customer.
Three agents built on the clinic's practice system, with anything clinical, including any question about a result, routed to the clinician, and every message logged for the clinic's CQC records.
The clinic's lead GP and its practice manager spent a morning setting the boundaries, which were stricter than most: agents may arrange, remind and collect; they may not describe a symptom, a result or a treatment. Every template was approved and referenced. We connected the practice system and the forms portal. For two weeks an administrator read every outbound message and clinicians spot-checked the routing; four messages mentioning symptoms were routed to a clinician in that time, all correctly. The aftercare agent was allowed to send unread by week three.
Every patient arrives with complete forms already filed, so the appointment starts on time and the clinician has read the history. Enquiries at 7pm are answered at 7:01pm and booked. Results follow-up happens the day the clinician signs off, every time, and the patient's next appointment is booked in the same message. The clinicians see an extra patient a day between them, and the practice manager has the message log the CQC inspection asked for.
'I was ringing people about results between appointments and hoping I hadn't missed one. Now the follow-up happens the moment I sign it off, and I'm in the room with the patient in front of me.'
Lead GP
New referrals and self-referrals were booked in the order they arrived, so a suspicious mole could wait behind a routine appointment. The clinic wanted urgent cases seen first and every follow-up recall actually booked.
A single patient coordinator was managing consultations, consent paperwork, pre-operative instructions and aftercare check-ins for every patient. Things slipped when she was on leave, and the surgeons noticed.
A free 45-minute call. Tell us where the time goes; we'll tell you honestly whether an agent would help and what it would save.
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