NHSE recently issued a policy statement drawing GP practices’ attention to a number of considerations before deploying virtual receptionist solutions. We welcome this guidance. The questions it raises are exactly the right ones.
Here’s our response, point by point.
On telephony, the Better Purchasing Framework, and national reporting metrics
NHSE’s guidance highlights that practices are required to procure telephony solutions through the Better Purchasing Framework (BPf), and that national data reporting obligations sit within those contracts. It flags a risk that virtual receptionist solutions could disrupt this reporting if call volumes become invisible to the BPf telephony supplier.
This is a legitimate concern and one practices should raise with any AI receptionist supplier.
Jackie is designed to work alongside your existing BPf telephony provider, not to replace it. Jackie does not require you to port or transfer your practice phone number away from your contracted supplier. Call routing is configured in partnership with your existing provider, keeping your telephony contract and its associated reporting obligations intact.
We actively encourage practices to discuss the specific call routing and reporting arrangement with their telephony supplier at the point of implementation, and we’re happy to support those conversations. We share weekly summaries of call volumes and can provide data to support reporting requirements.
On clinical safety: DTAC, DCB0129, and DCB0160
NHSE is clear: practices must carry out clinical safety assurance and ensure their virtual receptionist meets DTAC and DCB0129 requirements.
Jackie does. Here’s what that means in practice:
- Auxilis AI has completed a full Clinical Safety Case Report (AUX-CSCR-001) under DCB0129, developed with a named, registered Clinical Safety Officer (Zoe Oparah, GPhC: 2220033). This includes a formal Hazard Log, risk assessments, and documented mitigations for identified clinical risks.
- Jackie has undergone a DTAC assessment, covering clinical safety, data protection, technical standards, and accessibility.
- Jackie holds Cyber Essentials Plus, has completed the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) self-assessment, and operates an ISO 27001-aligned information security management system.
- For the deploying practice, DCB0160 obligations (the Local Safety Case) are explicitly supported. We provide a deployment support package including a pre-populated Local Safety Case template, an SOP, and a deployment guidance document, all designed to make local clinical safety governance manageable for practice staff.
Critically, Jackie is an administrative tool, not a clinical one. It captures patient requests and hands them to GP staff for action. It does not make clinical decisions, triage urgency, or advise patients on their care. Every Jackie output is reviewed by a human before any action is taken.
On business continuity and uptime
NHSE rightly asks practices to seek assurance on uptime during core surgery hours and to clarify business continuity arrangements, including what happens if the virtual receptionist fails.
Jackie’s architecture is built around this:
- Jackie is hosted on Microsoft Azure UK with multi-zone redundancy and automated failover. Our Recovery Time Objective (RTO) for the service is ≤5 minutes.
- If Jackie is unavailable for any reason, calls route automatically to human reception. There is no scenario in which a patient is left without a route to contact the practice.
- Our Disaster Recovery and Redundancy Plan is a documented, tested plan with quarterly failover tests and an annual full recovery drill. It is available to practices as part of our deployment documentation.
- We provide practices with regular performance reporting, including call volume summaries and fallback statistics.
The division of responsibilities between Jackie and your telephony supplier is something we clarify explicitly at onboarding. There are no ambiguities when something goes wrong.
On accessibility and patients who may struggle with automated systems
NHSE highlights the need to consider patients who may struggle with automated systems, including older patients, those with low digital confidence, and those affected by digital poverty.
This is something we care deeply about, and it shaped Jackie’s design from the start.
Jackie is a telephone-first, voice-only service. It requires no smartphone, no internet connection, no app download, and no digital literacy. A patient with a standard landline can use it. This means Jackie is inherently more accessible than online consultation tools or patient portals for many of the groups NHSE highlights.
Jackie’s conversational design uses plain English, short prompts, and allows patients to repeat or clarify at any point. And crucially: Jackie does not replace your reception team. It augments them. When a patient struggles with the interaction, for any reason, they can be transferred to a human receptionist at any point. Jackie is explicitly designed so that no patient is excluded from care pathways.
We publish an Accessibility Statement that is transparent about current limitations (Jackie is currently English-language only and audio-only), and we have a published improvement roadmap including SMS fallback, web chat alternatives, and multi-language support in development.
Our commitment
The NHSE guidance reflects a maturing conversation about AI in primary care, and that’s a good thing. Practices deserve suppliers who can demonstrate, not just assert, that their products are safe, compliant, and built responsibly.
Jackie was built to meet that bar. We make our clinical safety documentation, DTAC evidence, and governance framework available to practices, ICBs, and digital health reviewers. If you’re evaluating Jackie and have questions that this post doesn’t answer, please get in touch and we will be happy to provide the evidence directly.