Dr Klaus Green

A GP's view

We are a general practice serving 16,000 patients. I am the partner responsible for IT including the phone system. Over the years, I had grappled with the dilemma of renewal dates for our phone hardware and software being impossible to align. Our billing arrangements were unnecessarily complex and trying to compare other like-for-like providers was mind-boggling. We also had a limited number of lines which wasn't keeping up with capacity, particularly on a Monday morning.

I was keen to find a provider that could automate some of the appointment bookings for us. We have a significant elderly population and I wanted a solution that allowed us time to deal with those patients that need to speak to us, while providing a digital service to those that were happy to use it. I was finding however that systems like this tended to be too expensive.

When I met the guys from babblevoice I was really impressed with how their system was specifically designed to tackle the challenge of making life as easy as possible for practice staff, while delivering good quality care to patients.

We moved over to babblevoice in late 2016 and we've been delighted with it.

One of the best things is that the charging is very transparent. I really like that all new features are included in the price, unlike many other phone systems. You pay a cost per minute for your calls, you can track your usage via the reporting tool, and there are no different tiers of user. And the thing that impresses me most is that each year when we meet our accountants they ask "How is it that for a practice of your size, you manage to keep your telephone cost per patient so low?". My one-word answer is "babblevoice".

The system is designed so that as a practice, you are given the levers to set up the rules of engagement for your phone system. It can take a while to get your head around at first, but the babblevoice team will help you, and once it's set up you have a system that does exactly what your practice needs it to do.

For example, we close on a Monday lunchtime and so we divert calls upstairs to the admin office. At other times of the day when our call volumes are highest, all our admin team jump onto the calls, and babblevoice routes calls through to all different parts of the practice.

Each of our phones somehow miraculously link through to EMIS on the screen and this give us lots of functionality that is extremely useful. For example, you can simply click to dial the patient who is currently showing on your screen which in these post-COVID days means saving a lot of finger work!

We also find the call recording function really useful. It's really simple to find the recording of a call from a particular number at any given time. We find it really helps with handling patient complaints as it provides you with the facts of what was actually said during a call.

The system also provides you with a disaster toggle switch which has been very helpful to us. We have a pre-planned response which we've programmed into the system for when we have a problem at the main surgery site. So now, when we need it, we can hit the disaster toggle switch and it will re-route our calls.

Babblevoice also records a lot of really useful data. For example, you can see in real time how many people are waiting in the queue to get through, and the average wait times. It's extremely helpful to have that information immediately to hand.

The responsiveness of the babblevoice team has been excellent and is one of the things I would really commend them for. If we ever have any issues, babblevoice have bent over backwards to help us resolve things, even visiting us at the surgery if needed.

In summary, we are delighted with babblevoice. We love its functionality, the inclusiveness of new features, and the responsiveness of the team. We would very much recommend it as a system that is focused well upon general practice and delivers tools that are really useful in delivering care to patients.