How North East London NHS reduced missed appointments by 25%

Cutting DNAs, freeing clinical capacity, and improving patient access without increasing pressure on frontline teams.

North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) generated a 25% reduction in missed appointments (DNAs) by automating appointment management using EBO’s AI solution – fully integrated with Rio EPR and co-designed with frontline staff. Key outcomes at a glance:

Overview

North East London NHS FT (NELFT) serves 4.3 million people across London, Essex, Kent, and Medway, providing integrated community and mental health services.

Before deploying EBO’s AI Automated Appointment Management Solution, NELFT relied heavily on letters and telephone lines (operating between 9am and 5pm) to manage patient bookings. Patients didn’t have a digital way to arrange or adjust their appointments. As a result, staff spent significant time booking and rebooking appointments manually whilst DNA rates also increased.

NELFT introduced EBO’s AI-driven Virtual Assistant to provide patients with a simple, conversational interface to book, reschedule, cancel, or view appointments 24/7. Fully bi-directionally integrated with Rio EPR and co-designed with frontline teams, the solution enables customised business process automation.

The solution was initially deployed across 2 early adopter services; 0-19 Service – Health Visiting (1-year developmental reviews) and Musculoskeletal Services (service-wide) to handle booking and reschedule requests, automated cancellations, appointment views, and call-back requests, rolled out in two phases to gradually increase automation.

Download the case study to discover the solution’s performance, benefits, financial impact, staff and patient feedback, and the Trust’s next steps.

Summary of outcomes

Reduction in DNA Rates

0 %

yearly DNA savings across 2 early adopter services

£ 10 k

Patient Satisfaction Rate

10 %

Webinar Insights:

EBO’s AI Appointment Management Solution Transforming Scheduling at NELFT NHS FT

David Pike, Assistant Director of Healthcare Informatics – Clinical Systems, and Samir Shah, Chief Clinical Information Officer at NELFT, shared insights on EBO’s appointment management solution in EBO’s recent webinar. Watch it here or read the key insights here.

Discover how NELFT transformed its appointment management process using AI

“Parents and carers now have the flexibility to book appointments at a time that suits them, without needing to wait for a call-back or navigate complex systems. This has led to a noticeable increase in clinic utilisation and reduced missed appointments.”

Lisa London

Head of Universal Services Redbridge, NELFT

Trusted by leading healthcare organisations

Here are a few words from our clients on their experience with our solution.

[EBO] more than rose to the challenge. It felt like a true development partnership with staff from both EBO and BCU forming a cohesive team

Danielle Edwards

If a solution like EBO is implemented across the NHS, it can revolutionise access to maternity care for the majority of service users. The point is to release capacity in Health systems by using innovation and technology that supports that.

Charlotte Clayton

Our booking officers absolutely love our Virtual Assistant Alex, since it does the legwork and they can focus on the patient. Over the last six months, Alex has helped save 24 hours of staff time every week. Our callers come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, so we worked with our communication to make sure Alex understands all our patients and the different ways they communicate.

Kim Hale

The experience of working with EBO on our Virtual Assistant has been very positive. EBO and Servelec listened to our feedback and helped design AI solutions that benefit our patients by providing an alternative way they interact with the trust.

James Mariott

I think where we really found the stress is on the admin. A lot of our service users are calling us, which means that our lines are continuously busy and admins miss some of the calls, as they are on the phone with another service user at the time. It means that people are trying to get in contact till the late evening when the services are closed. It really opened up our eyes to see that there are other ways our clients can communicate with us and there are other ways that we can communicate with the clients. It actually works for them.

Shona Richards

EBO is a trusted partner of Microsoft, because a lot of what we see with thousands of customers that we work around the world is very much aligned with EBO’s mission and vision. They empower caregivers; they empower administrative staff, and they empower patients to have better access to information. 84% of Healthcare Executives believe that AI will revolutionise the way we obtain information.

Ruthy Kaidar

We have a growing backlog and we have patients whose conditions are just getting worse as their appointments are delayed. We have people in the community who cannot even get their first appointment, they cannot get diagnosed and they cannot receive early treatment. Covid has accelerated our adoption of virtual appointments and remote patient monitoring, so there is some efficiency gained there.

Jenny Chong

It is indeed a pleasure to work hand-in-hand with EBO in developing our AI profile and competence. Apart from providing excellent technical expertise, EBO has consistently supported, trained, and maintained a close relationship with all of our team whilst overseeing the development, deployment, and successful marketing of our AI platform. Such support is unique and provides us with the confidence and motivation to further develop this exciting Artificial Intelligence revolution together with EBO, and be able to provide a holistic and efficient experience to our clients.

Jean Claude Muscat

“Working with EBO is like ‘a breath of fresh air’. They have a deep-seated ‘can-do’ ethos to delivering successful solutions and our collaboration functions as a true partnership. The EBO Virtual Assistant is a new technology for us with great potential as it integrates directly with our Electronic Patient Record. We initiated a pilot with EBO on e-Consent and are already lined up for rolling out pre-assessment and appointment modules.¨