AiMe Origins

The Catalyst

After leaving Silicon Practice in 2023, Steve Treadwell and Jane Oddy embarked on a new entrepreneurial journey.  Inspired by their passion for making access to primary care easy for everyone and driven by their vision of using the opportunities provided by AI to solve day to day resourcing problems, they set out to design a conversational AI system to be the first-line call handler for patient calls. The catalyst came when they realised that in spite of the uptake and usage of the NHS App and online consultations, many patients still need or prefer to use the phone to contact their GP Practice. Having worked alongside practices they knew that the resources needed to answer patient calls are endless with many practices unable to deal with demand. Feedback from patient groups led to them understanding that many patients are faced with a closed door to GP Practices. They saw the knock-on consequences for staff in practices with increasing numbers often left depressed and demoralised and many considering leaving the profession. A light-bulb moment and soon after AiMe was born.

A Gap in the Market

Other companies have focused their attention on using AI to solve medical problems and to diagnose. We have turned our attention on using AI in quite a different way to tap into the administrative aspects of a GP Practice that take up so much of their time. Patients and NHS staff are affected by admin processes on a daily basis – and patients often turn to staff for help when they encounter problems with accessing and navigating care. We believe that AI gives a huge opportunity to change traditional models of access to primary care in truly transformative ways that go well beyond traditional solutions of recruiting additional staff.