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EMMA is Creating Duplicate Submissions for the Same Patient

Purpose of Document

Duplicate submissions are a recurring complaint at post-go-live stage. Practices report seeing the same patient appear twice in the dashboard inbox, which increases workload and causes confusion about which entry to action. Staff must understand the difference between a genuine system duplicate, a patient calling back, and a redirected enquiry appearing incorrectly, so they can resolve quickly and accurately.

Background: How EMMA Handles Multiple Submissions

EMMA captures patient requests and submits them to the practice's consultation tool. In most cases, each call produces one submission. However, duplicates can occur for several reasons including the patient calling back, a system-level submission retry, or a platform issue.

As of February 2026, EMMA's dashboard includes a built-in duplicate enquiry alert. When the system detects that the same patient has submitted more than one enquiry on the same day, a clear "Duplicate Enquiry" label is displayed on the relevant entry in the inbox. This alert is automatic and requires no configuration from the practice.

The duplicate alert checks for:

  • Matching patient numbers across submitted enquiries on the same day
  • Previously submitted enquiries from the same patient within the same day

Important: the alert only covers same-day submissions. Enquiries from previous days are not flagged as duplicates.

As of March 2026, the duplicate alert is also visible in the Failed and Review sections of the admin dashboard, not just the main inbox. This prevents staff from unknowingly processing the same enquiry twice when it appears in those states.

Common Causes and What to Check

1. The patient called back to chase or retry their request

This is the most common cause. A patient may call back because they are unsure whether their first call was successful, they did not receive a confirmation, or they want to add something. EMMA advises patients at the start of calls not to submit duplicate requests if they have already called in the last 24 hours, but some patients do call again regardless.

What to do:

  • Check the dashboard for the duplicate enquiry alert on the second entry
  • Review both submissions to confirm they are from the same patient
  • Advise the practice to action the first submission and mark the second as a duplicate
  • Reassure the practice that EMMA does include guidance to patients about not resubmitting

2. EMMA took two requests within a single call

A bug was identified in early February 2026 where EMMA was capturing two separate requests within a single call and submitting both. This was flagged for fix and resolved. If a practice reports two submissions from the same patient at almost identical timestamps, this historical bug may be relevant context.

What to do:

  • Check the submission timestamps on both entries
  • If they are within seconds or minutes of each other, this may indicate a double capture within a single call
  • Escalate to engineering with the enquiry IDs and timestamps if this appears to be occurring after the February 2026 fix was applied

3. A redirected enquiry incorrectly appearing in the admin inbox

Before May 2026, enquiries that had already been redirected could incorrectly surface in the practice admin inbox. Admin teams were seeing submissions that had no action required, which could appear as duplicates. This was resolved on 1 May 2026.

What to do:

  • If a practice reports seeing what appears to be a duplicate that requires no action, check whether this predates 1 May 2026
  • If it is occurring after that date, escalate to engineering with the affected enquiry IDs and surgery ODS code
  • Reassure the practice that the fix is in place and redirected enquiries should no longer appear in the admin inbox

4. A system-level submission retry was processed more than once

In rare cases, a submission retry mechanism may have submitted the same enquiry twice before the March 2026 duplicate handling fix was applied. Previously, duplicate submissions triggered error alerts and could be reprocessed. After March 2026, duplicate submissions are silently acknowledged by the system and not reprocessed.

What to do:

  • Check whether the issue predates the March 2026 duplicate enquiry submission handling fix
  • If occurring after that date, escalate to engineering as this should not be happening
  • Provide affected enquiry IDs and timestamps when escalating

5. An enquiry in progress indicator was not visible, causing admin staff to action the same entry twice

Before a planned fix, there was no in-progress indicator on enquiries being reviewed by another staff member. This could lead to two team members actioning the same submission simultaneously, which may appear to generate duplicate outputs. This was logged as a planned improvement.

What to do:

  • Ask the practice whether more than one staff member may have actioned the same entry at the same time
  • If this is the cause, advise the practice to use the enquiry status fields to mark entries as in progress before actioning
  • Confirm with the engineering team whether the in-progress indicator has been released for that surgery

Step-by-Step Triage Process

  1. Ask the practice for a specific example. Which patient? What time were the submissions? What does each entry contain?
  2. Check the dashboard for the duplicate enquiry alert on the relevant entries.
  3. Check the submission timestamps. Are they seconds apart (possible system-level double capture) or minutes to hours apart (likely patient callback)?
  4. Check whether either entry is a redirected enquiry that should not have appeared in the inbox.
  5. Confirm whether the issue predates any of the known fixes (February 2026 double capture, March 2026 submission handling, May 2026 redirected enquiry fix).
  6. If none of the above explains it and duplicates are still occurring after all relevant fixes, escalate to engineering.

What to Tell the Practice

Keep communication calm and factual. Example wording:

"The dashboard now includes a built-in duplicate alert that flags these automatically so your team can quickly identify which entry to action and which to disregard. We are reviewing the specific examples you have flagged to understand the cause and will come back to you shortly."

Do not confirm a system fault until the triage steps have been completed.

Common Mistakes

  • Treating every duplicate as a system fault before checking whether the patient called back
  • Not checking the submission timestamps before escalating
  • Overlooking the built-in duplicate enquiry alert already visible in the dashboard
  • Forgetting that the duplicate alert only covers same-day submissions
  • Not checking whether the issue predates the relevant platform fixes

Escalation Guidance

Escalate to engineering if:

  • Duplicate submissions are occurring at identical or near-identical timestamps with no patient callback explanation
  • The redirected enquiry inbox issue is occurring after 1 May 2026
  • System-level double submissions are occurring after the March 2026 handling fix
  • Multiple practices are reporting duplicates at the same time

When escalating, always include:

  • Surgery name and ODS code
  • Consultation tool used
  • Affected enquiry IDs
  • Submission timestamps for both entries
  • Description of what the patient said during each call if call recordings are available
  • Whether the duplicate enquiry alert was visible on the entries
Last Reviewed: May 2026 Owner: Support and Customer Success