Publication, Part of Cloud Based Telephony Data in General Practice

Cloud Based Telephony Data in General Practice, September 2026

Official statistics in development

Publication Date:: 29 Oct 2026
Geographic Coverage:: England
Geographical Granularity:: Regions, Integrated Care Boards, Sub-Integrated Care Boards, GP practices
Date Range:: 01 Apr 2025 to 30 Sep 2026

Summary

This publication provides information about the number of cloud based telephony calls received by general practices. This information is published monthly and includes practice-level data.

The publication presents a high-level time series from April 2025 onwards, showing monthly counts grouped by day and time of call of:

• The total count of practices included in this publication

• The total number of inbound calls into general practice

The outcome of those calls grouped into:

• Calls dealt with by either being answered, ending during the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) stage of the call prior to joining the queue to be answered, or as a result of a call back request

• Calls not dealt with that ended whilst in the queue to speak to a member of staff

The wait time and duration of answered calls:

• The wait time for calls to be answered, in time buckets

• The duration of answered calls

• The answered call wait time metrics - calls answered within 2 mins during core hours and between 8-10am

• The time the caller waited before ending the call before it was answered, in time buckets

The suppliers of Cloud Based Telephony Systems provide the data for this publication on behalf of the practices that they serve, and which have agreed to participate in the collection. Some system suppliers are not yet able to provide data for this collection.

No patient identifiable or patient-clinical information is collected or available in this release.

Key Facts

Cloud Based Telephony data coverage

In September 2026, information was received for 5,339 GP Practices.

This represents 86.6% of all open and active practices.

Total calls to General Practice

There were 33,681,565 calls to practices in September 2026.

Total calls dealt with

In September 2026, 29,728,983 (88.3%) of calls were dealt with

54.7% of calls were answered,

7.9% were calls that resulted in a call back request,

and 25.7% ended within the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) prior to joining the queue to be answered, in response to an automated message or diversion

Total calls not dealt with

There were 3,953,552 (11.7%) calls which ended whilst the caller was waiting for their call to be answered

The time and day of calls made to practices

2,242,730 (6.7%) of inbound calls to practices in September 2026, were made between 8.00am and 10.00am on Monday mornings

Time taken to answer the call

Of the 18,415,877 calls answered by practice staff, 58.1% of calls were answered after waiting under 2 minutes

18,090,673 calls were answered during core hours (8am – 6.30pm Monday to Friday), of which 10,514,581 (58.1%) calls were answered after waiting under 2 minutes.

4,576,972 calls were answered during the hours 8 – 10am Monday to Friday, of which 2,443,181 (53.4%) calls were answered after waiting under 2 minutes.