Patients in Rotherham say the new AI receptionist taking their calls at their doctors’ surgery doesn’t understand their Yorkshire accent.
Some surgeries are triaging patients using a nationwide AI system called EMMA to avoid long wait times on the phone. But some frustrated patients are getting so fed up trying to be understood they are heading to the GP surgery on foot instead to try and get an appointment.
What is EMMA?
EMMA, which stands for ‘Enhanced Medical Management Assistant,’ is an artificial intelligence virtual receptionist and telephone assistant. It is used by NHS GP surgeries to deal with millions of calls from patients in the UK and has been described as a 'breath of fresh air', managing incoming patient phone calls to ‘eliminate queues, and streamline appointment triaging’.
Healthwatch Rotherham told the BBC some patients could not get the system to understand their regional accents or speech impediments. Manager Kym Gleeson told the BBC how they visited community groups and spoke to those bothered by their reception from the AI assistant.
Accent Issues and Patient Frustration
"One of the issues is this system can't always understand what people's inquiry is about due to their broad Yorkshire accent," she said. "Across South Yorkshire, accents do vary quite a lot. There are different twangs so there's a lot of variation. It seems the system isn't always able to understand, so that causes frustration."
Healthwatch said its team had spoken in particular to elderly and veterans groups to inform them they can opt out of the system. The manager added: "Practices use websites to triage but if you prefer to use the telephone it can be hard to navigate this AI system, especially if you're feeling quite vulnerable due to ill health."
"Some of the people said they had ended up going to the surgery in person because they felt using a telephone was no longer a comfortable process for them."
Mixed Reactions and Developer Response
But she also told the BBC the EMMA system meant calls were navigated more swiftly. "In that sense, it is a good system but for some people who don't want to tell AI their details, it is a concern," she added.
Many GP surgeries open their phone lines at 8am, which leads to the ‘8am rush' or 'scramble,’ as patients requiring an on-the-day appointment have to phone on the dot of miss out. But many patients say they are kept in long queues only to be told that all the appointments have been booked.
NHS data has found only four in 10 patients see their GP on the same day they booked and as many as one in 10 wait 28 days, as a single full-time GP is now responsible for an average of 2,236 patients; 299 more than a decade ago in September 2015.
But the new AI system has also been described as a ‘breath of fresh air’ and developers QuantumLoopAI point out patients can speak to a member of staff ‘at any time’. QuantumLoopAI told the BBC it understood patients' concerns and recognised there can be an adjustment period when new technology is introduced. A spokesperson said: "EMMA does not make clinical decisions. She is designed and trained to understand a wide range of accents and dialects and supports 17 languages in addition to English."
"Where she is unable to understand or deal with a patient's request the call is transferred to the reception team. No caller is required to continue speaking with EMMA, and anyone can ask to speak to a member of staff at any time."
QuantumLoopAI added that feedback from practices and patients across the country has been "overwhelmingly positive" with more than 90% of patients reporting a positive improvement in service.
