Patients rarely ring a surgery or clinic for a chat. They are unwell, worried or fitting an appointment around work. Blake Telecom has set up phone systems for healthcare services since 2004, helping reception teams handle the morning rush and keep conversations private.
At many GP surgeries, the phones light up the moment the lines open. Dozens of patients ring at once, most hear an engaged tone, and they redial again and again until they get through.
That frustration lands on the reception team, who are trying to book appointments, pass on results and help the patient standing at the desk, all at the same time.
A modern GP phone system changes the pattern. Callers hear where they are in the queue, can ask for a call back instead of waiting, and reach prescriptions, results or appointments directly.
A dental practice, a community pharmacy and a private physiotherapy clinic run very differently. Their phones, though, are under the same strain: too many calls at once, sensitive conversations and staff who cannot always be at a desk.
Monday mornings, the first hour after opening and the days after a bank holiday bring far more calls than staff can answer. Queues and call backs spread that demand out.
Symptoms, results and medication count as special category data under UK GDPR. The platform keeps data in the UK, meets NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit standards and lets you limit who hears recordings.
GPs on home visits, community nurses and staff moving between sites still need to be reachable, without giving patients their personal mobile numbers.
A recording shows exactly what a patient was told about a result, a repeat prescription or an appointment, which helps when a complaint or query comes back weeks later.
Practices also use recordings to train new receptionists, support staff after a difficult call and review how urgent requests were handled.
Our VoIP call recording keeps every call in warm storage for 30 days, extendable to 180 days, with cold storage up to 10 years for longer retention.
Before you start: Tell patients that calls are recorded, limit who can listen back and set retention in line with the NHS Records Management Code of Practice, the Data Security and Protection Toolkit and ICO guidance.
Choose the tools that fit your practice, from queue messages that keep patients informed to apps that let clinicians call from anywhere on the practice number.
Callers hear where they are in the queue and roughly how long the wait is, and fewer hang up and ring back.
On contact centre plans, patients can ask for a call back and keep their place without staying on the line.
Send prescription, results and appointment calls to the right team, rather than leaving everything with one receptionist.
When the practice is closed, play clear directions to NHS 111 or your local out-of-hours service.
Where your clinical or practice management system supports it, CRM integration lets the patient’s record open as the call connects.
GPs, nurses and community staff can call patients from the practice number on their mobile, over Wi-Fi or mobile data.
Where your plan includes messaging, send appointment reminders and follow ups by text to cut missed appointments.
Move a phone call onto video when a clinician needs to see a rash, a wound or a medicine label.
We set up what your practice needs today and add more as patient numbers, services or sites grow.
Most patient calls follow the same path: reach the right person, deal with the request, note what happened. The quicker each step, the shorter the queue for everyone else.
Menus, patient record links and AI-generated summaries take routine admin off reception, while clinical decisions stay firmly with your staff.
A short menu sends the call to appointments, prescriptions or results.
The caller hears their position, or asks for a call back where available.
Where supported, the patient’s details appear as the call is answered.
An AI-generated summary captures the request and next steps for staff to check.
For illustration purposes only. Screens are examples and do not show real systems or data.
Larger practices, primary care networks, clinic groups and private hospitals often need a proper contact centre. You can add one to the same platform, which is backed by a 99.999% uptime service level, without changing numbers or retraining everyone.
Talk to us about your contact centreUCaaS combines calls, video meetings, chat and presence on one cloud platform. It works well for practices where clinicians, managers and admin staff are spread across several sites or work from home.
CCaaS adds queues, call backs, live dashboards and reporting for busy patient lines. Speech analytics can also help teams spot callers who may be vulnerable and need extra support.
Plans start from £8.99 a month per user, and queue messages and call backs for your patient line can be set up from the start. Moving your practice numbers across is free.
Your cost depends on the number of reception and clinical users, the recording you need and the connection at each site. Our pricing page shows typical figures, and we are glad to go through them with your practice manager.
Healthcare covers far more than GP surgeries, and every service has its own pattern of calls. Large patient lines and booking teams are covered in more depth on our contact centre phone systems page.
We support surgeries, dental practices and clinics across the UK, including those near Ysbyty Gwynedd with a business phone system in Bangor, around Furness General Hospital in Barrow-in-Furness, close to Foresterhill in Aberdeen, and across Birmingham and Belfast.
Practices in Cambridge and Bishop Auckland can find local details as well.
A good GP phone system takes the sting out of the morning peak with queue messages and call backs, and lets a network share calls across its practices.
A dental phone system has to cope with a team that is chairside most of the day. Ring groups keep the surgery phone answered, and recall reminders go out by text.
Separate prescription queries from general calls, keeping pharmacists from being pulled away from the counter for every enquiry.
Route self pay, insurance and appointment calls to the right team, with recordings that show what patients were told.
Let therapists move between treatment rooms and sites while bookings are still answered on one number.
Manage appointment lines and aftercare calls across branches, with one number for every location.
Keep families, GPs and carers in touch with staff on shift, including care workers visiting clients at home.
Offer calm, private routing for sensitive calls, with clinicians calling clients from the service number rather than a personal phone.
Many practices still rely on phone systems installed years ago. Replacing one has to happen without a single morning of missed calls.
We will look at your setup and contract dates, then suggest the least disruptive route: SIP trunking for equipment in good shape, a hosted PBX or a complete cloud move.
A cloud PBX in secure UK data centres supports business continuity, with disaster recovery routes to a second site or business mobiles. AI-generated call summaries help staff in hybrid working roles keep notes up to date.
Smaller premises
FTTC and SoGEA suit smaller practices, pharmacies and branch sites that need clear calls and steady access to online systems.
See FTTC and SoGEA broadbandSurgeries and clinics
Full fibre gives busy surgeries the capacity for patient calls, video consultations and cloud clinical systems at the same time.
Explore fibre broadbandDedicated and uncontended
A dedicated, uncontended line suits hospitals, clinic groups and contact centres where any outage affects patient care.
Find out about leased linesWith phones and broadband from one supplier, there is one team to ring when something stops working, not two firms blaming each other while patients wait. Ask us about business broadband.
Every practice has its own rhythm, and we start by looking at when patients call, why they call and who answers.
Where your current system can report them, we look at your busiest hours, abandoned calls and the reasons patients ring.
Short, plain options that work for older callers and for anyone ringing while they feel unwell.
Illustration only. The business, callers, numbers and times are examples, not a live system.
We agree who can hear recordings and see call logs, in line with your data protection policies.
We schedule the move for a quieter period, and patients are never left unable to get through.
The aim is a phone system your reception team trusts and your patients find easier to use.
The cloud platform behind our healthcare phone systems already supports patient lines at a busy NHS trust. Here is what changed for them.
Harlow, Essex · NHS hospital trust
Serving up to 500,000 residents, the Trust had a failing switchboard and an appointments queue that could hold only 20 callers.
Figures are those reported by each organisation in case studies published by our platform provider. These organisations use the platform through other partners and are not Blake Telecom customers.
Providers want reassurance about suppliers. Two Gold awards in 2026 and a Leader placing in the 2025 GigaOm Radar sit behind the platform we install, with a Corporate Vision title for Blake Telecom.
Customer Service Team of the Year
Won in April 2026 at the 24th American Business Awards, which added Gold for Achievement in Management and gave out two Silvers and a Bronze.
Product UX
Gold in April 2026 for the platform’s mobile workspace, where calls, video and team chat appear on one screen.
Contact Centre as a Service
Named a Leader and Fast Mover in the 2025 GigaOm Radar for CCaaS, which reviews contact centre platforms for feature depth and speed of progress.
The awards were won by the platform we supply. Reviews from verified users are available on Gartner Peer Insights.
Patient calls often involve sensitive details. These are the answers on data, recordings and payments that practices usually ask for.
Certified Platform. The platform holds ISO 27001, ISO 27017 and SOC 2 certification and Cyber Essentials, and personal data is handled in line with UK GDPR.
Secure Card Payments. Private payments over the phone use PCI DSS compliant capture, which keeps card details off recordings and away from reception staff.
Recording and Retention. Choose which teams and users are recorded using VoIP call recording. Each call is held in 30 days warm storage, extendable to 180 days, with cold storage up to 10 years.
UK Data Residency. Patient and customer data stays in UK data centres, and video meetings are protected by end-to-end encryption.
Surgeries and clinics have trusted us with business communications since 2004. A UK-based team plans the move with you, tests it before go live and stays on hand for every site.
Blake Telecom have been supplying our business communications for well over 10 years. We have found both their systems and support to be fully robust, and they have given an excellent service throughout, with value for money for their products. Their approach to helping our business has always been excellent from every aspect and I would highly recommend their services.
Blake Telecom have been paramount to the growth of our business by continuing to offer our business the very highest level of service. The equipment we have been supplied has been extremely flexible, allowing us to adapt as our needs change. Blake Telecom’s knowledge and expertise have been very professional, and we look forward to working together on our future projects.
Blake Telecom have revolutionised the way we operate. They have gone the extra mile in making the setup process painless, and it was easy to install. Any questions are dealt with quickly and efficiently, and the staff are a pleasure to deal with. I truly wish we had found them years ago. We recommend Blake Telecom to many of our suppliers and even customers whenever we can.
When we moved to rural office space, without the benefit of reasonable broadband speed or any telephony services in place, Blake Telecom directed us to alternatives, and the solution we have is excellent. 4G Wi-Fi VoIP serves our current needs and situation perfectly. The team were succinct in their explanation of what we could achieve, providing something promptly and getting this set up with minimum fuss and delay.
Yes. Queue messages tell callers their position and update as they move forward, which cuts the number of people who hang up and redial.
Call back is available on contact centre plans. The caller keeps their place in the queue and the practice rings them when it is their turn.
Surgeries often choose a hosted phone system, sometimes known as an internet phone system, because it runs from UK data centres. Cloud communications and unified communications bring patient calls, video consultations and messages together for reception and clinical teams.
MS Teams calling can be added for practices that already use Teams. Remote working phones, such as the mobile app, let staff take calls away from the building without sharing a personal number. We have supplied business telecoms since 2004.
Integration with many patient record and practice management systems is available, bringing up patient details as calls connect. Tell us which system you use and we will confirm the options before you commit.
Yes. The platform hosts data in the UK and meets NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit standards, alongside its ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials certifications.
Many do, to handle complaints fairly, support staff training and keep an accurate account of advice given. Tell patients calls are recorded and follow NHS and ICO guidance on how long to keep them.
Every call recording starts in warm storage for 30 days, extendable to 180 days, and cold storage packages can hold it for up to 10 years.
Yes. Using the mobile app, clinicians call from the practice number. Patients never see a personal number and can ring the practice back if they miss the call.
Yes. Calls can be redirected to staff mobiles or a second site you choose in advance, and patients still reach the practice while the connection is restored.
Most of the work happens before go live: agreeing menus, recording rules and who needs which device. The switch itself is planned for a quiet period, and patients notice little beyond clearer messages.
Mostly the same tools, set up differently. Dental teams rely on ring groups while they are chairside and text reminders for recalls, while GP practices lean on queue messages and call backs to get through the morning rush.
Pricing is based on user numbers, the features your practice needs and connectivity. Our VoIP pricing page lists the packages, and we are happy to quote for your practice.
Replacing an ageing system, easing the morning rush or opening a new site? We will show you what a cloud phone system would change for your patients and staff, with a clear quote to match.
We build your queue messages and call backs with your practice team, move your numbers carefully and support your reception staff afterwards.
Our team is available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm.
Reviewed by Aaron Barrowman, Engineer at Blake Telecom, on 22/10/2026.
Set up your new VoIP phone system, fully working today, including a new number and programming.