24/7 Availability
Patients can book appointments any time, not just during office hours.
40% Fewer No-Shows
Automated reminders and easy rescheduling reduce missed appointments.
Free Up Staff
Reception staff can focus on patients in the clinic, not phone calls.
GDPR Compliant
All patient data encrypted and stored in UK data centres.
Everything your clinic needs
Our AI reception integrates with your existing practice management system and handles the calls your staff shouldn't have to.
An AI receptionist for GP surgeries that answers every call, every time
Most GP surgeries in the UK have more patients trying to phone than reception staff able to answer. The result is the 8am scramble: engaged tones, long queues and patients who give up and turn up at the desk or A&E instead. An AI receptionist removes the queue. It answers every call at once, in a natural British voice, and does the routine work of a receptionist: booking, cancelling and moving appointments, taking prescription requests, giving out results that are cleared for release, and answering the questions your team repeats fifty times a day.
AIEngine builds and runs the service for your practice. We connect it to your clinical system, train it on your appointment rules and your triage pathways, and keep a human handoff for anything that needs one. Your reception team stays. They just stop being a switchboard.
The phone problem in general practice
The national GP Patient Survey has reported for several years that only around half of patients find it easy to get through to their practice by phone. That is not a staffing failure. A receptionist can hold one conversation at a time, and demand arrives in a spike at 8am that no rota can match without leaving people idle for the rest of the day.
The cost is not only patient frustration. NHS England has estimated that a missed GP appointment costs around £30, and practices lose slots every day because the person who wanted to cancel could not get through to say so. Reception staff absorb the anger of patients who have waited forty minutes on hold, which makes the job harder to recruit for and harder to keep people in.
The NHS Modern General Practice model asks practices to offer patients a consistent front door across phone, online and in person, and to move away from first-come-first-served telephone access. An AI receptionist is one practical way to meet that expectation without adding headcount.
What the AI receptionist handles, call by call
These are the call types we configure for a typical GP surgery. Every one follows the rules you set, and every call is transcribed and logged so you can audit exactly what was said.
| Call type | What the AI receptionist does |
|---|---|
| Book a routine appointment | Confirms the patient by name, date of birth and a second identifier, checks live availability in EMIS, SystmOne or Vision, offers the slots that match your booking rules (for example, nurse versus GP, face to face versus telephone) and books directly into the system. Sends an SMS confirmation. |
| Cancel or reschedule | Finds the existing appointment, cancels it and offers alternatives. The freed slot is immediately available to the next caller, which is where most of the no-show reduction comes from. |
| Same-day or urgent request | Asks the structured questions your practice uses for care navigation, captures the answers, and either books into a same-day slot or hands the call to a clinician or duty receptionist with the summary already written. Red-flag symptoms trigger an immediate human transfer or a 999 or 111 instruction, whichever your protocol specifies. |
| Repeat prescription | Takes the medication names and the nominated pharmacy, records the request as a task for the prescribing team and tells the patient the turnaround time. Never issues or promises a prescription. |
| Test results | Confirms identity, checks whether results have been filed and cleared by a clinician for release, and reads out only the clinician’s comment. Anything not cleared is passed to staff as a callback. |
| Opening hours, registration, sick notes, referrals | Answers from the practice information you approve and sends links by SMS where a form is needed. Registration and referral enquiries create a task with the patient’s details attached. |
| Out of hours | Explains how to reach 111, takes non-urgent bookings for the next working day and records messages for the morning, so the practice opens with the overnight requests already in the system. |
Integrations with the systems your practice already runs
The receptionist is only useful if it can see your appointment book. We connect to the clinical system first, then to the tools around it.
- EMIS Web
- Live appointment availability, booking, cancellation and task creation.
- SystmOne
- Appointment booking and rescheduling, plus tasks for prescriptions and callbacks.
- Vision
- Appointment management and message logging for practices on Vision.
- Your phone system
- Works alongside existing cloud telephony. Calls can be answered on overflow only, out of hours only, or on every ring.
- SMS and email
- Confirmations, reminders and links to online forms, sent from your practice name.
- Call recording and reporting
- Every conversation transcribed and searchable. Daily and weekly reports on call volumes, outcomes and handoffs.
Patient data, UK GDPR and what we do not do
Patient conversations are special category data under the UK GDPR. All call audio, transcripts and booking data are processed and stored in UK data centres, encrypted in transit and at rest, and retained only for the period you set in your data processing agreement. We act as your data processor, and we provide the documentation your Data Protection Impact Assessment needs before go-live.
The receptionist is not a medical device and does not make clinical decisions. It follows the care navigation questions your practice already uses, records the answers and hands over. It never diagnoses, never advises on medication and never overrides a clinician’s instruction about which results can be released.
- Identity verified with at least two identifiers before any patient information is given out.
- Full transcript and audio of every call, available to the practice for audit and complaints.
- Configurable retention periods and deletion on request.
- Staff can listen to any call and take over a live conversation.
When a person takes over
A good AI receptionist knows what it should not handle. We configure explicit handoff rules with your practice manager: red-flag symptoms, safeguarding concerns, distressed callers, complaints, anything a patient asks to discuss with a person, and anything the system is not confident about. In those cases the caller is transferred to your team with a written summary of the call so far, or offered a callback at a time they choose.
In practice the AI handles the majority of routine calls end to end, and the calls that reach your staff are the ones that genuinely need a person. That is the point: reception staff get their time back for the patients in front of them.
How we set it up
Most practices are live within two to three weeks. You do not need to change your phone number or your clinical system.
- 1
Discovery call
We map your call types, your appointment rules and your care navigation questions with the practice manager and lead receptionist.
- 2
Integration
We connect to EMIS, SystmOne or Vision and to your telephony, and agree the data processing agreement and DPIA inputs.
- 3
Scripts and testing
We build the conversation flows, load your practice information and run test calls with your team until they are happy with every path.
- 4
Soft launch
The receptionist starts on overflow or out of hours only, so your staff can review real calls before it takes the front line.
- 5
Go live and tune
We review transcripts with you weekly for the first month and adjust scripts, handoff rules and slot logic as you learn what patients ask.
Frequently asked questions
How is the service priced for a GP surgery?
We quote a flat monthly fee per site after the discovery call, so a busy week never costs more. The fee depends on your call volumes, the integrations you need and how many sites you run, and it always includes setup, integration, script writing, staff training and ongoing changes to your scripts. There are no per-call or per-minute charges. Call 07340 891928 or email contact@aiengineltd.com for a quote.
Does it integrate with EMIS, SystmOne and Vision?
Yes. The receptionist reads live availability from and books directly into EMIS Web, SystmOne and Vision, and creates tasks for prescriptions, callbacks and registrations. Integration is part of setup and is included in the monthly price.
Is it UK GDPR compliant for patient data?
Yes. All audio, transcripts and booking data are processed and stored in UK data centres, encrypted in transit and at rest. AIEngine acts as your data processor under a written data processing agreement, and we supply the documentation your Data Protection Impact Assessment needs before go-live.
Can an AI receptionist solve the 8am scramble?
It removes the queue, which is what causes the scramble. The receptionist answers an unlimited number of calls at the same moment, so nobody hears an engaged tone or waits on hold. Patients can also book, cancel and reschedule at any hour, which spreads demand away from 8am.
What happens with urgent or complex calls?
The receptionist asks your practice’s care navigation questions, records the answers and hands the call to a clinician or duty receptionist with a written summary. Red-flag symptoms, safeguarding concerns and distressed callers are transferred immediately or given 999 or 111 instructions, exactly as your protocol specifies. It never gives clinical advice.
How quickly can it be live in my practice?
Most practices are live within two to three weeks: a discovery call in week one, integration and scripts in week two, then a soft launch on overflow or out of hours before the receptionist takes front-line calls.
Can it handle calls in Welsh and other languages?
Yes. The receptionist can be configured for Welsh and for the other languages commonly spoken by your patient list, and will switch language when the caller does.
Will it reduce missed appointments?
Two things reduce no-shows: automated reminders with a one-tap way to cancel or move the appointment, and the fact that patients who want to cancel can actually get through. Freed slots are released to the next caller straight away.