The Challenge
Like many practices, The Hill Surgery had been caught in a difficult cycle. Recruiting and retaining receptionist staff was a constant pressure, and the demands on the team were having a real impact on morale and retention. “We were losing people as fast as we could recruit them,” Milan explains.
The practice took the bold step of outsourcing its reception to an external call centre several years ago, which relieved the day-to-day management burden considerably. But Milan knew there was a further step to take. He wanted something that would standardise the information coming into the practice and reduce his team’s call load more permanently.
For Milan, one of the most compelling arguments for automation was the ability to deliver a consistently high standard of service for every patient, every time. “Nothing standardises like a machine,” he says. “They just follow protocol, every single time.”
The other drivers were equally practical: the pressure of the 8am rush, the need to respond to every urgent request on the day it was received, and the simple economics of running a business under sustained financial pressure.
Why Think Healthcare
Milan attended sector conferences to evaluate the options available, and went through a thorough selection process before choosing VCN.
“We beauty-paraded all of them,” he says. “Think won out a lot of the time because of the regulations and assurances they could give me.”
Key factors in the decision included:
VCN works with any phone system, so there was no requirement to change the practice’s existing setup. Because calls remain within the BPF-approved phone system, the NHS data extraction that supports national planning is preserved. This mattered to Milan, who understood the importance of that demand being visible.
Clinical safety was another decisive factor. Think Healthcare’s VCN has been independently assured by SafeHand, the UK’s leading clinical safety organisation for health technology, providing Milan with confidence that the system meets DCB0129 standards without simply self-certifying.
Data is stored and processed within the UK, with integrations to EMIS and other clinical systems built through official, NHS-assured API partner programmes rather than screen scraping.
And Think Healthcare has been developing virtual receptionist technology for the NHS for over 20 years, longer than any other provider in the market.
“It’s not whether you go with someone or not now,” says Milan. “It’s a question of which provider.”
The rollout
Milan’s approach was deliberate and staged. Rather than switching everything on at once, the practice introduced VCN as an option on its phone menu, allowing patients to self-serve rather than wait in a queue.
“I didn’t want to exclude people,” he explains. “I gave them a choice.”
The first phase focused simply on taking calls and capturing information. Over the following months, he introduced additional capabilities one by one: appointment cancellation, repeat medication requests, signposting for conditions such as UTIs, and care pathway routing for care home patients and those with learning disabilities.
“I remember saying, all I’m going to let you do is take a call for the first couple of weeks. Then we allowed cancellations. Then repeat medications. We did it in stages.”
Looking back, Milan acknowledges it could have moved faster. But the gradual approach meant the team understood each change, concerns were addressed before they became problems, and patients had time to adapt.
Today, around 25% of calls to the practice are handled through VCN, processing approximately 300 calls every week. Critically, that adoption is voluntary: patients choose to use the service because it works. Queue times have reduced since VCN was introduced, and Milan expects them to fall further once AIMEE becomes the default entry point for all callers.
The patient demographic tells its own story. Analysis of VCN usage shows that 23% of users are aged 80 or over, and a further 24% are aged between 61 and 79. Nearly half of all VCN users are over 60, demonstrating that the service is accessible and genuinely useful to older patients, not just the digitally confident.
What it means for the team
The impact on reception staff has been the most significant change Milan has noticed.
“I have a happier reception team. That’s far and away the biggest benefit I’ve seen. They’re taking fewer calls, so they can spend more time on the calls they do handle. They don’t get as much pressure because patients tend to be a little bit happier.”
As call volumes through VCN grow, Milan is planning a further shift: moving to AIMEE, Think Healthcare’s AI-powered conversational layer, as the default entry point for all callers. AIMEE guides patients through their query in natural conversation, removing the need to navigate menus.
Milan is looking forward to the AIMEE rollout, expecting it to build on the gains VCN has already delivered for the practice.
Beyond answering calls, Milan sees VCN freeing up staff capacity for different types of work: data analysis, quality reporting, oversight of clinical pathways. “Someone has to analyse all this and present it to my partners and to NHS England. I can train someone to do that now because they’ve got the headspace to think about it.”
Advice for other practices
Having navigated the transition from outsourced reception to a fully deployed virtual receptionist, Milan speaks from genuine experience. His message to other practices is straightforward: go in with realistic expectations, communicate well with all stakeholders, and you will reap the rewards.
Milan is candid that the journey requires commitment, but equally clear that the effort is worth it.
“Don’t run away with the idea that this is simple. It’s difficult. But together we managed to get over the hurdles.”
His practical advice on implementation: brief your management team first, then your reception team, then your patients. Involve your patient participation group early to test the system before it goes live. As with any significant change in a busy practice, some patients will take time to adjust. Milan’s advice is to treat that feedback as an asset rather than a problem.
“You have to sift through all of them and treat them all with the same respect, because there’ll be one or two pearls of wisdom in those comments.”
On the bigger picture, his view is unequivocal. This technology is coming regardless, and the question is simply how to implement it well.
“The genie is out of the bottle. You can either embrace it or hide your head in the sand. One way or another, it’s coming.”For Milan, the journey from outsourced reception to a fully deployed virtual receptionist has been one of steady progress, a happier team, and a practice better equipped to meet the demands placed on it. As the system continues to grow and new capabilities come on stream, he sees that journey as very much still underway. His advice to others is simply to start.
To find out how VCN could work for your practice, contact the Think Healthcare team.