How Patient Requests Are Processed

Purpose of This Article

This article explains what happens after EMMA has handled a patient call. It covers how requests reach your team, the types of requests EMMA submits, what happens when medical capacity is reached, and how out-of-hours calls are managed.

How Requests Reach Your Team

Once EMMA has handled a call, the patient's request is submitted directly into your online consultation tool inbox, for example Accurx, eConsult, or Klinik. Generally, the request arrives in the same way as any other online consultation submission.

Your team can review and action requests from there as normal. No additional steps are required on your end.

Types of Requests EMMA Submits

EMMA submits requests across three categories:

• Medical requests - same-day clinical queries and urgent health concerns
• Admin requests - fit notes, test results, referral chasing, medical records, and general administrative queries
• Routine requests - non-urgent appointment requests such as medication reviews, smear tests, blood tests, and health checks

Each request is categorised automatically to help your team triage efficiently.

Understanding Medical Capacity

From 1 October 2025, the NHS GP contract requires all practices to keep their online consultation tools open throughout core hours (8:00 AM to 6:30 PM, Monday to Friday) for non-urgent appointment requests, medication queries, and admin requests.

Medical requests can be capped. Admin and routine requests cannot be switched off during core hours.

What happens when medical capacity is reached

When your daily medical cap is reached, EMMA informs patients that the practice has reached its capacity for same-day medical requests. Patients are advised to call 111 if their matter is urgent or 999 in an emergency. Non-urgent patients are offered the routine appointment flow.

Patients who insist on speaking to someone can always be transferred to your surgery bypass number, regardless of capacity.

How to set your medical cap

Your medical cap is configured directly within your online consultation tool, not through EMMA. EMMA reads the cap from your consultation tool and responds accordingly.

When setting your cap, allow a small buffer below your actual clinical capacity to account for calls that are in progress when the cap is reached. A buffer of two to five requests is recommended.

If you need guidance on finding these settings in your consultation tool, contact the QuantumLoopAi team.

What Happens If a Patient Is Transferred Mid-Call

If a patient is transferred to reception before EMMA has submitted a request, no request will be submitted automatically. The patient may need to explain their query again to your reception team.

However, the transcript and recording of the call become available on the dashboard within seconds of the transfer. Receptionists with dashboard access can review what was already discussed before speaking to the patient.

Out-of-Hours Calls

There are two options for handling calls made outside of your configured hours:

• EMMA remains active but informs callers that the surgery is closed and no requests can be taken at that time.
• EMMA is turned off entirely outside of hours so that calls are not answered by EMMA.

The configuration should be aligned with your surgery's existing out-of-hours phone system setup. Discuss your preference with your QuantumLoopAi account manager during onboarding, or contact the team if you would like to change this after go-live.

Troubleshooting

Requests are not appearing in our consultation tool inbox. Check that your consultation tool is open and accepting submissions. If it is open and requests are still not arriving, contact the QuantumLoopAi team with details of the affected calls so we can investigate.

Requests are arriving in the wrong category. Contact the QuantumLoopAi team with examples. Request categorisation can be reviewed and adjusted.

Patients are being told capacity has been reached but we still have availability. Your medical cap may be set too low in your consultation tool. Log into your consultation tool and review the daily limit. Contact the QuantumLoopAi team if you need guidance on where to find this setting.

EMMA is taking calls outside of our configured hours. Contact the QuantumLoopAi team immediately. Your out-of-hours configuration will be reviewed and corrected.

A request was submitted but contains incorrect patient details. Contact the QuantumLoopAi team with the call details. The dashboard transcript for that call can be used to identify where the issue occurred.

FAQs

Does EMMA submit requests in real time? Yes. Requests are submitted to your consultation tool inbox as soon as the call is complete.

What if a patient submits a duplicate request? EMMA advises patients at the start of every call not to submit a duplicate request if they have already submitted one in the last 24 hours. If a duplicate does arrive, it can be identified and discarded by your team in the consultation tool inbox.

Can we change our out-of-hours configuration after go-live? Yes. Contact the QuantumLoopAi team at any time and we will update your configuration.

What happens if our consultation tool goes down? If your consultation tool is unavailable, EMMA will not be able to submit requests. Contact the QuantumLoopAi team as soon as possible so we can assess the impact and advise on next steps.

Related Articles

• EMMA's Capabilities and Call Handling
• Dashboard and Call Recordings
• NHS Reporting and Data
• Support and Ongoing Account Management