Medical AI at work in UK doctors’ surgeries

InTouchNow.ai is now offering doctors surgeries a piece of software designed to modernise phone answering, designed to reduce hold times and create a smoother, more responsive experience for patients and staff. In the UK, many GP (general practice) surgeries’ phone lines are tied up in the mornings as patients try to contact their medical practitioner for appointments. More acute need can be delayed among calls with routine enquiries, meaning high-priority callers can be left waiting for long periods.

The system uses voice-based AI to handle calls, schedule appointments, and assess patient needs, and is capable of handling many calls simultaneously, channelling callers with appointment requests, those seeking general advice, prescription requests, and seeking results of clinical tests.

Founded by Daniel Park, InTouchNow.ai draws on his 30+ years of experience in medical call centres. The AI receptionist answers calls quickly, and can automatically update integrated appointment systems. Practices can record a voice messages to personalise the experience for patients.

Benefits for practices include reducing the numbers of missed calls, decreased workload for reception staff, and improved access by patients to medical services. Being entirely software-based, the system operates outside regular hours, which can reduce the need for staff overtime at times of peak demand.

The system integrates with common GP software like Surgery Connect, AWS, and Anima, automating tasks and maintaining patient data security while giving practices full control.

The technology supports over 200 languages, with options for different dialects and accents, an aspect that will help patients in multi-cultural areas like inner-cities. Several practices in the UK are already using InTouchNow.ai and have reported positive results in call handling and patient access.

The much under-funded National Health Service in the UK has been quick to deploy AI-powered software to reduce its operating costs, often targeting the reduction of staff administration costs to funnel funds into patient care. For example, Smart Triage is an AI-powered system deployed in UK GP practices that can triage patients making initial enquiries, and based on their responses, book them into the right care pathway, such as GP or nurse appointment, or referral to specialist clinician.

An evaluation of Smart Triage at a Surrey GP practice in 2024 showed the platform reduced the average patient waiting time by 73%.

For clinicians, especially GPs, iatroX is a UK-based AI clinical reference platform that helps doctors retrieve evidence-based clinical guidance, and summarising relevant literature & guidelines. Doctors in general practice are expected to be able to assess a full range of patients’ needs, and such platforms help clinicians identify the cause of uncommon symptoms when GPs might lack specialist knowledge.

An evaluation in 2025 found a majority of surveyed users stating iatroX was useful (~86%) or reliable (~79%).

As documented by NHS England, AI platforms are used in practice, tackling tasks like diagnosis, the monitoring of chronic disease, provision of prescription advice, and handling general administration tasks that otherwise would take up clinicians’ time. Of all the sectors where sensitive data has to be protected, medicine has one of the highest standards of governance, making the deployment of AI a delicate balance between operational effectiveness and the preservation of privacy.

(Image source: “Doctor appointment” by Taric25 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

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