Riverside Medical Centre: 6 Months with Medelic

Riverside Medical Centre is a 12,000-patient practice in East London serving a diverse, predominantly working-class community. Like many urban practices, they were struggling with overwhelming phone demand and staff burnout. Here's what happened when they deployed Medelic.

The Challenge

Before Medelic, Riverside's morning phone queue was the source of constant stress. Practice Manager Helen describes the situation:

"We were getting 400+ calls a day, mostly crammed into the first two hours. Our receptionists were in tears by 9am. Patients were angry. Our GPs were spending their first hour dealing with complaints instead of seeing patients. Something had to change."

The practice had tried other solutions. An online triage form helped some patients but created a parallel queue that still needed processing. A callback system reduced hold times but didn't reduce the total work. They needed something that could actually handle the volume.

Implementation

Medelic was deployed over a two-week period in March 2024. The implementation included:

• Integration with the practice's EMIS Web system
• Staff training sessions for clinicians and reception team
• Parallel running alongside existing phone lines for the first week
• Gradual transition of incoming calls to the Medelic system

The practice chose to route all new appointment requests through Medelic while keeping a direct line for prescription queries and admin. This hybrid approach allowed them to optimise AI for the highest-volume, most time-consuming call type.

The First Month

Initial results exceeded expectations. Within the first month:

• Average patient wait time dropped from 11 minutes to under 90 seconds
• Reception phone handling time reduced by 4 hours per day
• Zero red flag cases were missed (with two appropriate 999 escalations)
• Patient complaints about phone access dropped to near zero

Dr Okonkwo, one of the GP partners, noticed the difference immediately:

"I used to start my day already behind, dealing with the morning chaos. Now I come in and there's a neat list of pre-triaged patients, each with a clear summary of what they need. I can actually think about the medicine instead of firefighting."

Six Months On

The improvements have been sustained and in some cases amplified as the team has optimised their workflows around the new system.

Staff Impact

The changes for reception staff have been transformative. Where they previously spent most of their time on phones, they can now focus on face-to-face patient care and administrative tasks that require human judgment.

Reception lead Sarah explains:

"I actually enjoy coming to work again. We used to feel like we were under siege. Now we can take time with patients, help people who are confused, deal with complex situations properly. We're doing the job we signed up for."

Staff absence due to stress has reduced, and the practice has been able to recruit more easily - something that was a significant challenge before. Word has spread that Riverside is a better place to work.

What Patients Say

Patient feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. While some were initially sceptical about talking to an AI, the experience won most over:

Lessons Learned

The Riverside team shared some insights for other practices considering AI triage:

• Invest in staff training - the technology is only as good as how well people use it
• Start with high-volume, lower-complexity calls - build confidence before expanding scope
• Communicate with patients - let them know what to expect and how to get human help if needed
• Monitor closely in early weeks - catch any issues quickly before they become problems
• Trust the clinical governance - the safety systems work; let them do their job

What's Next

Riverside is now exploring expanding Medelic's role to handle routine prescription queries and extend hours coverage. They're also part of a PCN pilot looking at shared AI triage across multiple practices.

As Helen puts it: "We went from surviving to thriving. I wish we'd done this two years ago."