Your clinicians answer the same waiting room questions hundreds of times a week.
Vic handles it for them.
Vic is a WhatsApp-based virtual assistant for urgent treatment centres. It gives patients real-time updates on wait times, progress, and next steps — so your clinical team can focus on clinical work.
The Communication Gap in Urgent Care
In a typical urgent treatment centre, the nurse-in-charge and reception staff are interrupted dozens of times per hour with the same non-clinical questions: “How long will I wait?”, “Has my name been called?”, “What happens next?”
These interruptions pull clinicians away from patient care. They increase cognitive load, contribute to burnout, and slow the entire department. Meanwhile, patients sit in the waiting room with no information, growing anxious, and causing many to leave before being seen.
The result is a cycle of frustration: patients feel ignored, staff feel overwhelmed, and commissioners lose visibility into why patients are self-discharging.
Vic breaks this cycle.
How Vic Works
No app to download. No training required. Vic works on WhatsApp – the platform your patients already use.
Step 1: Connect
Patients scan a QR code in the waiting room. Within seconds, they’re connected to Vic on WhatsApp in their preferred language.
Step 2: Inform
Vic provides personalised, real-time updates: estimated wait times, queue position, and a step-by-step guide to what will happen during their visit.
Step 3: Support
Patients can ask questions, request help finding a wheelchair or phone charger, access stress management tips, or check whether their name has been called – all without approaching a single member of staff.
Step 4: Signpost
Where clinically appropriate, Vic can redirect patients towards alternative services such as Pharmacy First – potentially reducing UTC demand and freeing clinical capacity.
Step 5: Capture
When patients choose to leave before being seen, Vic captures their reason in real time. This gives managers self-discharge insights they’ve never had before – directly from the patient, at the point of decision.
Why Vic Matters
For Clinicians
Fewer non-clinical interruptions. Less time answering “how long will I wait?” and more time delivering care. Vic acts as the digital extension of the nurse-in-charge; handling high-volume, low-risk communications so the clinical team doesn’t have to.
For Patients
No more sitting in a waiting room with no information. Vic provides personalised updates in the patient’s own language, tells them where they are in the queue, explains what will happen next, and offers practical support while they wait.
For Service Managers
Real-time self-discharge feedback. Understanding why patients leave before being seen is one of the hardest data gaps in urgent care. Vic captures this at the moment it happens – giving managers actionable insight to improve services and demonstrate quality.
“Vic can save hours and hours of staff interruptions whilst improving patient satisfaction, and has unlocked patient self-discharge insights we never thought possible.”
— Dr Peter Watson, Clinical Lead
Dr Watson supported the early development of Vic at a busy NHS urgent treatment centre, where the tool was tested with patients and clinical staff.
Information governance and compliance
Vic is being built with NHS digital standards as its target from day one. Our compliance roadmap is structured around three recognised frameworks:
Cyber Essentials: Our first priority. We are preparing for Cyber Essentials certification to establish foundational cybersecurity standards before any patient-facing deployment.
DTAC (Digital Technology Assessment Criteria): Our development process is designed to align with DTAC requirements, covering clinical safety, data protection, technical security, interoperability, and usability.
DSPT (Data Security and Protection Toolkit): We intend to complete the DSPT to demonstrate that our data handling meets NHS standards ahead of any pilot deployment.
Clinical safety is a design principle, not an afterthought. Vic does not provide medical diagnosis or clinical advice, it handles operational communication only, maintaining a clear boundary between clinical and non-clinical functions.
See Vic in action
We offer a free 15-minute online demonstration for NHS commissioners, clinical leads, and urgent care managers. See how Vic integrates into your existing patient flow, no technical setup required.
Prefer email? Reach us at hello@prioritymedgroup.com