Overview
Join Nick Hughes, Divisional Director for Reed Wellbeing, as he shares how Proactive AI Agent helped clear a 15,000-person backlog of NHS referrals and gave contact center agents the time to actually sit with patients who need it most.
Learn how Reed Wellbeing, part of Reed in Partnership, runs healthy lifestyle programs for people referred by their GP at risk of type 2 diabetes, and how a 3-month pilot of Proactive AI Agent turned initial skepticism into proof that faster outreach meant better engagement, cutting typical wait times from 27 to 30 days down to 5, and reducing the active backlog from 15,000 people to roughly 3,000 to 3,500, while freeing agents from outbound call pressure so they could spend real time with patients like an 80-year-old woman who needed 20 to 25 minutes of reassurance before joining the program.
In this session, you’ll hear:
- Why NHS England’s push to engage referred patients faster couldn’t be proven or delivered through human dialing alone
- How a 3-month pilot turned initial skepticism about AI into measurable proof of faster, more effective engagement
- Why offering patients an informed choice between digital and face-to-face programs mattered more than steering them toward one option
- How removing the bulk of outbound call pressure let agents spend meaningful time with patients who need support, not just make more calls
- Why bringing agents into the process from day one, with clear explanation of what was changing and why, prevented the fear that often comes with AI adoption
Whether you’re managing a healthcare referral backlog or trying to introduce AI into a contact center without losing the human side of care, this testimonial shows what it looks like to use automation to create more space for the moments that need a person.