During the limited rollout the assistant is read-only. It can look anything up, but it cannot book, cancel, take payments or change records yet — you make those changes in PracticeHub as usual. The write abilities described in places below are what’s coming when the rollout widens; today the server simply doesn’t offer them, so the assistant physically has nothing to call.
What it can do, in human terms
- Look things up — a patient’s details, their appointment history, what they owe, which invoices are unpaid, which appointment types are bookable online, and so on.
- Check availability — find genuinely free slots for a location, appointment type and (optionally) a specific practitioner, ready for you to book in PracticeHub.
- Coming later — book, change and record — booking and rescheduling, recording payments, updating records and conversational data migration arrive when write access is switched on.
Example asks
“What does my Thursday look like?”
“What does my Thursday look like?”
It looks at your own diary for Thursday and reads back what’s booked — patients, times and appointment types. Ask it to also flag anyone who hasn’t confirmed, and it can filter by status too.
Coming later — “Book Mrs Ellis's follow-up next Tuesday afternoon with Dr Patel.”
Coming later — “Book Mrs Ellis's follow-up next Tuesday afternoon with Dr Patel.”
It finds Mrs Ellis, works out which appointment type “follow-up” means for her, checks Dr Patel’s genuinely free slots on Tuesday afternoon, and — a well-behaved assistant will do this — reads the details back to you before booking. Once you say yes, it’s a real booking: validated the same way the calendar is, with the usual confirmation message sent, and it shows up in the appointment log as booked by you.
“Which invoices are unpaid this month?”
“Which invoices are unpaid this month?”
It pulls up every unpaid invoice dated this month. This needs your role to have financial visibility switched on — if it can’t see invoices, it’ll tell you that rather than guess.
Coming later — “Move my 10 o'clock to 2pm.”
Coming later — “Move my 10 o'clock to 2pm.”
It checks 2pm is actually free first (so it isn’t double-booking you), then moves the appointment, keeping its original length unless you say otherwise. If the slot’s taken, it says so instead of forcing it in.
Coming later — “Cancel Mr Byron's 3pm today, he's called in sick.”
Coming later — “Cancel Mr Byron's 3pm today, he's called in sick.”
It cancels the visit with a note recording why, and the normal cancellation messaging goes out to the patient — exactly as if a staff member had clicked cancel. If the visit’s already been checked out, it can’t be cancelled, and the assistant will tell you that instead of trying to work around it.
Coming later — “Add a note to Ada's file — she brought in a referral letter.”
Coming later — “Add a note to Ada's file — she brought in a referral letter.”
It adds a dated entry to Ada’s patient record. This needs your role to be able to edit patients; without that, it’ll say so rather than silently skip it.
Coming later — “Take £45 cash from Bob and allocate it to his open invoice.”
Coming later — “Take £45 cash from Bob and allocate it to his open invoice.”
It records the payment and applies it to the invoice, the same way you would at the desk. Card payments are the one payment type it can’t record this way — it’ll point you at the card terminal instead.
Coming later — “Here's our patient list from the old system — bring it into PracticeHub.”
Coming later — “Here's our patient list from the old system — bring it into PracticeHub.”
Not yet — this is a write, and the assistant is read-only during the limited rollout, so it cannot create records. Migrate over the REST API instead (Importing your data); assistant-driven migration arrives when write access is switched on — see Migrating your data for why and when.
Boundaries
- Clinical notes follow your note permission. The assistant can read a patient’s notes when your role has Patient visit notes — the same permission that shows the notes tab in PracticeHub itself — and the own-patients ringfence narrows it the same way it narrows everything else. It cannot write notes during the limited rollout. Once write access is switched on, the same permission will let it create a note, filed against one of the account’s own note templates (a role limited to draft-only notes will only create drafts); editing or deleting a note, adding a signature or drawing, or submitting AI Scribe audio stay app-only.
- Documents and scans need the other route. Uploading a PDF or image isn’t something you can hand an assistant conversationally today; that goes through the REST API’s document upload instead, typically with a developer’s help.
- Card payments can’t be recorded through it. Cash, bank transfer and the like, yes — card payments have to go through your card terminal as normal.
- It can only do what your role allows. Not a technical limit you need to think about day to day — but if it refuses something, that’s your PracticeHub permissions working correctly, not a fault. See Troubleshooting if a refusal looks wrong, and Administration to change what a role can do.