How Nightingale Surgery Saved 110 Days of Admin Time and Tripled Recall Conversion Rates

Nightingale Surgery, like all GP practices, faced a familiar dual challenge: ensuring patients attend essential health reviews while keeping the administrative burden on staff manageable. Manual recalls — phone calls, letters, and follow-up chasing — were consuming significant staff time, and response rates were stuck at around 20%.

Hippo changed both.

The challenge

Before Hippo, Nightingale Surgery's recall process relied entirely on manual outreach. Staff spent hours filtering patient lists, making phone calls, sending letters, and chasing non-responders. Despite this effort, conversion rates across campaigns averaged just 20% — meaning eight in every ten patients contacted didn't book. The practice was using Accurx for some recall activity, but its manual coding requirements meant it couldn't automate the end-to-end process the team needed.

The result: high administrative costs, low patient engagement, and missed opportunities for preventive care.

The solution: Hippo Recaller

Hippo provided Nightingale Surgery with its automated recall platform, enabling the practice to send personalised, multi-channel messages across SMS, WhatsApp, Email, and the NHS App — with patients able to book directly via an integrated link. The platform tracked responses automatically, flagged non-responders for follow-up, and integrated with the practice's existing clinical systems without disrupting existing workflows.

Results across all campaigns

Across four clinical programmes — Flu, Diabetes, Child Immunisations, and Cervical Smears — Hippo delivered the following results:

• 2,683 appointments booked by patients using Hippo Recaller

• 50% average conversion rate across all campaigns (up from 20%)

• 826 hours of admin time saved

• £11,500 in total admin cost savings

• Over 4,000 individual patients contacted, with 41% booking via the direct link

• 110 days (five months) of admin time saved across the year

Campaign breakdown

The impact was consistent across all four programmes:

Flu vaccine: 900+ patients booked, 50% conversion rate, 25 days of admin time saved, £2,700 in cost savings.

Diabetes: 275+ patients booked, 53% conversion rate (up from 20%), 6 days of admin time saved, £650 in cost savings.

Child immunisations: 130+ patients booked, 35% conversion rate, 5 days of admin time saved, £500 in cost savings.

Cervical smears: 27% conversion rate, contributing to the overall 62-day admin saving and £6,483 in cost savings across the smears and remaining programmes.

Practice voice

"Using Hippo has completely changed the way our practice operates. What used to take hours of administrative effort — filtering lists, making calls, and following up — now takes just a few clicks. This efficiency allows us to focus on delivering quality care instead of being bogged down by manual tasks. Patients have also noticed the difference; they appreciate the timely reminders and proactive communication, which make them feel more in control of their own health."

— Stacey James, Regional Reception Lead, Nightingale Surgery