Private healthcare
The data you are handling is a different category in law.
Health information is special category data under UK GDPR, which changes what you need in place before a call is recorded, stored or transcribed. Self-pay enquiries are also urgent in a way most sectors' aren't — people ring after deciding not to wait.
A recorded call about someone's health is not an ordinary recording.
UK GDPR treats data concerning health as special category, which means processing it requires more than the lawful basis you would rely on for an ordinary marketing call. A recorded enquiry in which somebody describes a condition is exactly that kind of data, and so is a transcript of it.
Retention set once for a whole floor doesn't distinguish that call from a call about a window. Getting the recording, retention and access position right is the part of this that a phone system decides.
How leads actually arrive
What goes wrong today
Recordings are kept as if they were ordinary sales calls
Retention set once for the whole floor doesn't distinguish a call in which someone described a medical condition from a call about a window.
Enquiries wait while people are in pain
Self-pay enquiries frequently follow a decision not to wait. A slow callback loses them to whoever answered first, and the urgency is real rather than manufactured.
Call handlers stray into clinical territory
The line between describing a service and answering a clinical question is one your organisation defines, and a script on screen is how it gets held consistently.
What the product does about it
Retention you set, per your own policy
Recordings kept for the period you decide and deleted on request, with a log of who deleted what.
Access that is logged
Who listened to which recording, and who changed a setting.
Recording that can be paused
So a portion of a call can be kept out of the audio entirely where you decide it should be.
Scripts on screen at the point of the question
Which is how a boundary between service information and clinical advice gets held by every handler rather than the experienced ones.
Where compliance sits
Health data is special category data under UK GDPR, and processing it requires an appropriate condition in addition to a lawful basis. The ICO's own guidance is the source, and your DPO's reading of it governs — not ours.
Clinical and professional regulation carries its own requirements, determined by you.
The general calling rules apply as everywhere: PECR, TPS, and Ofcom on abandoned calls.
Data concerning health is special category data under UK GDPR and requires an additional condition for processing beyond a lawful basis.
ICO — special category dataThis is not legal or regulatory advice. Your obligations under the rules that apply to you are yours to determine. What we can describe accurately is the calling rules that apply regardless of sector — PECR, TPS and CTPS, Ofcom's limits on abandoned calls, and UK GDPR — which we have researched from the regulators' own material and written up in full.
Read the UK calling compliance guide →A worked example
Illustrative self-pay figures, not a customer's real numbers.
The gap between booked and attended is the one worth attacking, and it usually moves with how quickly the first call happened rather than with anything said on it.
Work it through with your own numbers →Questions from this sector
Can we record calls in which patients describe conditions?
Recording health information means processing special category data under UK GDPR, which requires an appropriate condition as well as a lawful basis. The ICO's guidance is linked above. Whether and how you do it is for your DPO to determine.
How quickly do self-pay enquiries need calling?
Faster than most sectors, because the enquiry usually follows a decision not to wait. Someone who has just chosen to pay rather than join a list is comparing providers that day, not that week.
See it on your own leads.
Half an hour with someone who has run a floor. Bring a lead source and a question.
Book a demo