EUROPE at the same time . Indicators can be used to identify particular patient groups that maybe at more risk and enable informed insight to prescribers .

“ The system allows a CCG to identify trends . It ’ s predicting these things and utilising historical data . You know patients prescribed A and B , but therefore they now have an increased risk of developing X . It has been well received ,” says Curry .

Partner power With growing populations and a shrinking healthcare budget , patient services continue to remain under strain , leading the healthcare industry to continue to look at providing digital solutions to its customers . Utilising artificial intelligence ( AI ), the NHSBSA ’ s contact centre has piloted supporting users in some of the most routine questions , leading to a drop in wait times and an increase in operator availability .

Working with Arcus and Amazon , the NHSBSA ’ s initial proof of concept

NHSBSA was established in

has been completed , where similar technologies seen in Amazon Alexa have also been embedded within the Authority ’ s contact centre operations .

“ It ’ s providing a number of benefits to users . We implemented this in four weeks and went live with an initial service . However , we also made sure that patients had the opportunity to drop out and speak to an operator at any point in the process , as we don ’ t want to force people to use it ,” observes Curry . “ Through this process , we had a success rate of over 40 % of all customers that called in , where their queries could be resolved with the AI which had been put in place . Whilst users can talk to an operator between 7am and 5pm , we ’ ve got AI on the phone 24 hours , seven days a week . This is now set to be rolled out .

“ I ’ m looking to explore where we can apply that technology further ,” continues Curry . “ This will enable our contact centre operators to speak with

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