Frustrated GP patients hang up as Yorkshire accent baffles AI receptionist

‘Emma’ the Rotherham chatbot has 17 languages says AI firm – but health watchdog says system struggling with local ‘twangs’

Patients in a South Yorkshire town are frustrated by an AI GP receptionist not understanding their “broad accents”, a health watchdog has said.

Healthwatch Rotherham , a local health and social care watchdog, said a number of practices in the area had introduced a new AI receptionist called Emma.

It said it was hearing accounts of the AI not understanding local accents. Its manager, Kym Gleeson, told the BBC: “One of the issues is this system can’t always understand what people’s inquiry is about due to their broad Yorkshire accent.

“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.”

The system, which is being used by an increasing number of GP surgeries across the UK, aims to answer every patient call “instantly”, eliminating the often long wait times patients experience in a phone queue, waiting to speak to a receptionist.

Gleeson said Emma had the potential to be a good system, but one disgruntled patient told Healthwatch: “I could never get it to understand me, I ended up just hanging up and not bothering to try and book an appointment.”

The feedback came after the watchdog contacted groups representing older people and veterans’ communities, Gleeson said. “What they were telling us was they were having issues navigating this system.

“Some of the people were so frustrated at not being able to understand how to navigate this AI system, it was forcing them to travel back to their GP surgery in person. The usual route of using a telephone was no longer a comfortable process for them.”

Healthwatch said concerns around Emma were heightened when considering people less confident about using digital technology, or people with disabilities. “It’s important to remember that GP practices still have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments for patients who need them,” it said .

“If using an AI receptionist is difficult for you, you can ask your practice what alternative ways are available to access services.”

QuantumLoopAI, the company behind the Emma system, said it was designed to understand a range of dialects and patients could speak to a human at any time.

A spokesperson told the BBC: “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.

“Emma is designed to improve access by answering calls instantly and removing telephone queues.”