7 Best Telephone Answering Services for UK Clinics in 2026

The phone rings while you're halfway through a treatment. It rings again at lunch, and at 7pm when the clinic is locked. Each of those calls might be a new patient, and a voicemail isn't a booking. Someone ringing round three clinics may book with whoever picks up first. A telephone answering service picks up instead, and the best telephone answering service UK clinics can use depends on when and why you miss calls.

The services on offer work very differently. Some only take a message for the morning. Some book straight into your diary while the caller waits. Some use people, some use AI, and one promises it never will. They bill in different units too (per minute, per second, per call or per message), so the headline monthly price rarely tells you what a clinic will pay.

This list compares seven options on diary booking during the call, how well each fits a clinic, and price. Prices and terms come from each provider's own site, checked in October 2026, including the small print on minimum terms and VAT.

Best telephone answering services in the UK: a quick overview

• Chimehill (AI): best for physio, osteo and podiatry clinics already on Cliniko (or Splose, PracSuite, Nookal) that want the 7pm and Saturday calls booked, not written down.
• Clinic Answer (people): best for small clinics on PPS, Cliniko or Power Diary that want PAs trained on clinic diaries and don't mind paying by the minute.
• Message Direct (people): best for clinics that want a person answering at 3am as well as 3pm.
• Moneypenny (people, with an AI option): best for larger private clinics and groups that want a dedicated healthcare reception team and can work from a quote.
• Face for Business (people only): best for practices whose patients expect a human voice every time, with a recording to check afterwards.
• Connect Communications (people in office hours, automated out of hours): best for clinics on TM3 that want a low entry price and pay per message.
• Answer (people, with an AI option): best for a sole practitioner whose phone only overflows a few times a week and who doesn't want a monthly bill at all.

1. Chimehill: best for UK clinics on Cliniko that want after-hours calls booked, not just noted

Most of the bureaus on this list take a message after 6pm, or charge extra for a person to answer. Chimehill is the AI receptionist option: you divert your clinic number to it, and when a new patient rings at 8pm on a Thursday it finds a free slot in your diary and books them in before they hang up. It also moves and cancels existing appointments. It handles admin calls only and never gives clinical advice.

The difference from a message-taking bureau shows on a booking call. Chimehill checks the slot again just before it writes, and the caller only hears "you're booked" after Cliniko (or whichever of the four systems you use) has saved the appointment. If someone rings to move a session, it confirms who they are first; a number on caller ID isn't treated as proof. Questions about parking, prices or whether you see insurance patients are answered from notes your clinic has signed off, and anything outside those notes is handed back to you. If a patient asks to speak to a person, it passes them to your team or logs a callback, depending on how you've set it up. If a caller describes something urgent, it follows a script your clinic has approved and doesn't attempt to deal with it.

The catch for UK clinics is the software list. Chimehill books into four systems: Cliniko, Splose, PracSuite and Nookal. If your clinic runs on PPS, TM3, WriteUpp, Semble, Pabau or anything else, Chimehill can't see your diary or book into it. It can still answer the questions you've approved and pass every caller to your team as a message or callback task, but a human service whose staff log into your diary will do more for you.

Key features

• New-patient bookings, reschedules and cancellations written into your Cliniko, Splose, PracSuite or Nookal diary on the call
• Answers evenings, weekends and bank holidays at no extra charge
• Identity check before any change to an existing booking
• A written summary of each call, so the 9pm and Sunday calls are waiting for the desk on Monday morning
• Tells callers it's the clinic's virtual receptionist, and anyone who wants a person is transferred or booked a callback

Best for

• Physio, osteopathy, chiropractic, podiatry and similar clinics on one of the four supported systems
• Clinics losing new-patient calls during treatments, at lunch and after hours
• Practice managers who'd rather open the diary and see bookings than a list of people to ring back

Pricing (as of October 2026)

• 100 calls a month: £129
• 200 calls a month: £189
• 350 calls a month: £289
• Each call over the allowance: £1.60
• All prices plus VAT; a 14-day free trial and no minimum term on any plan

UK bureaus mostly bill by the minute, second or message. Chimehill bills by the call, so a patient who spends five minutes on insurer authorisation details costs the same as one who just wants Tuesday at 10. On the smallest plan a fully used allowance works out at about £1.29 a call, and about 83p on the largest. Plan details are on the pricing page.

Pros

• Bookings made at 9pm or on a bank holiday go straight into the diary
• A monthly price in pounds that you can set against a bureau quote, and two weeks to try it
• Answers only from what your clinic has approved, and hands over the rest

Cons

• Can't book for clinics on PPS, TM3, WriteUpp or any UK system other than Cliniko, Splose, PracSuite and Nookal
• Speaks English only, and we haven't yet published which region call data is hosted in; ask us before you sign up if your data protection checklist needs it

If you'd like to hear it answer as your clinic, book a demo.

2. Clinic Answer: best for small clinics on PPS, Cliniko or Power Diary paying by the minute

Clinic Answer is a telephone answering service only for clinics. Calls are taken by people (the site calls them medical PAs) based in its Edinburgh and Wokingham offices. Its client list on the site covers osteopaths, physiotherapists, chiropodists and podiatrists, psychologists, cosmetic clinics, optometrists and GP practices, among others. There's no mention of AI.

With the diary management add-on, PAs work inside your booking system. The site says they are trained in PPS, Cliniko, Medesk, Power Diary, Setmore, Practice Pal and Google Calendar, "including but not limited to". They book new patients (private, NHS or insurer-referred), handle follow-ups, rescheduling and cancellations, and can schedule reminder texts or emails. Without the add-on, messages come by email at no extra charge, and callers can be announced before transfer to your mobile or landline.

Key features

• People who answer only for clinics, based in the UK
• Diary management in common UK clinic systems, including PPS and Cliniko
• Messages by email with no charge per message
• Announced call transfer to your phone

Best for

• A two- or three-room clinic on PPS that wants a person to take the new-patient booking, including private, NHS and insurer-referred patients
• Clinics with short, simple calls, where per-minute billing stays low

Pricing (as of October 2026)

• Pay As You Go: £30 a month, no minutes included, 99p a minute
• PA 60: £60 a month, 60 minutes included, then 99p a minute
• PA 180: £160 a month, 180 minutes included, then 99p a minute
• Diary Management add-on: £40 a month
• Over 200 minutes a month: a tailored plan on request
• One-month free trial, free set-up, rolling monthly; VAT basis not stated

Pros

• Built for clinics, with UK clinic software named on its own site
• Published prices and a month to try it
• Rolling monthly tariffs you can cancel at any time

Cons

• Billed by the minute, so long calls cost more
• Its site (October 2026) doesn't say which hours the PAs cover or what they do with a patient describing an urgent problem; get both in writing during the trial
• Booking into your diary costs an extra £40 a month

3. Message Direct: best for clinics that want a person answering at 3am as well as 3pm

Message Direct is a UK answering service staffed by people, with a page for clinics that names acupuncturists, dentists, physiotherapists and psychologists among the practices it covers. For a clinic that gets calls on Sunday nights and bank holiday Mondays, the useful part is that a person answers round the clock as standard; the site says cover at 3am is the same as at 3pm.

On its clinic page, Message Direct says its team knows more than 50 online diary systems, naming PPS, Cliniko and WriteUpp, and can book confirmed appointments on the call. That makes it the one bureau here that a WriteUpp clinic can shortlist on the strength of its own website. The page doesn't say where its staff are based or where call data is stored.

Key features

• A person on the line at night, at weekends and on bank holidays, without paying for an out-of-hours add-on
• Booking on the call in online diaries such as PPS, Cliniko and WriteUpp
• Text messages at 12p each
• No set-up fee

Best for

• Clinics that take calls late at night or at weekends and want a person, not voicemail or an AI
• Clinics on WriteUpp or PPS that want bookings made outside office hours

Pricing (as of October 2026)

• Plans from £19.20 a month; call allowances and per-call rates aren't published
• Free 14-day trial
• Contract: the clinic page says three months minimum and then a month's notice, while the general answering page only mentions monthly invoicing and a month's notice
• VAT basis not stated

Pros

• 24/7 cover as standard, not an add-on
• Names PPS, Cliniko and WriteUpp
• Low starting price and a free trial

Cons

• With no allowances or per-call rates published, you can't work out a monthly cost until you get a quote
• Its two pages disagree on the minimum term, so ask which one your contract will use

4. Moneypenny: best for larger private clinics and groups that want a dedicated healthcare team

Moneypenny is one of the better-known UK answering bureaus, and it runs a separate team for private healthcare. That page puts the team at 50 health and care receptionists, all in the UK. It also sells an AI receptionist that books appointments and answers routine questions, passing calls to its people when it needs to.

For booking, the page promises appointments "scheduled directly into your system", and it can take a deposit as the patient books, which suits clinics that charge for an initial assessment upfront. What it doesn't do is name a clinic diary: the integrations listed are business systems such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Calendly, Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365 and Clio, plus apps connected through Zapier. A practice manager filling in a supplier data protection questionnaire will find DPIA-aligned processes and Cyber Essentials accreditation stated on the same page.

Key features

• A dedicated UK-based healthcare reception team
• Appointment booking and deposits taken at the point of booking
• Optional AI receptionist that hands calls to people
• Office hours of 8.30am to 6pm as standard; evenings, weekends, bank holidays or round-the-clock cover can be added

Best for

• Private clinics and groups with several sites or high call volumes
• Clinics that want payment taken at the point of booking

Pricing (as of October 2026)

• No price list; you get a quote based on usage, and there's a free trial
• Terms depend on the size of the scheme: three months minimum and a month's notice for smaller answering schemes, six or twelve months with three months' notice for larger ones

Pros

• A team that works only on health and care calls
• People and AI from one provider
• Security statements published on the healthcare page

Cons

• You can't set its cost against the others on this list until you've had a quote
• No clinic practice software named; ask whether it can book into yours
• Longer minimum terms on larger schemes

5. Face for Business: best for clinics that want a promise that no AI ever answers

Face for Business is a UK answering service that states on its healthcare page that real people answer every call and it never uses AI. Its PAs are based in the UK, and it says all of them have experience handling healthcare calls. Its site includes a case study from a private GP practice.

Every call is recorded and available in its app, which helps if you want to check how a tricky call was handled. Its PAs can take card payments on the phone through Stripe, handy for a cancellation fee or a deposit. They can also book patients in online when your own team is busy or away, but the healthcare page doesn't name a single clinic diary system, so check yours during the trial.

Key features

• People only, with a stated no-AI policy
• All calls recorded and available in the app
• Payments taken over the phone through Stripe
• Online appointment booking on the Inclusive Minutes plan

Best for

• Clinics whose patients or practitioners won't accept an AI on the phone
• Clinics that want a recording of every call

Pricing (as of October 2026)

• Taster: from £49 a month, charged by the second, core business hours
• Message Only: from £99 a month, with each call at a fixed price and one lead PA assigned to your clinic
• Inclusive Minutes: from £115 a month, adds evenings and weekends, out-of-hours voicemail, appointment booking and CRM integrations, with no charge for sales or nuisance calls
• No set-up fees; free 7-day trial
• Minimum term of 90 days before it moves to 30-day rolling; VAT basis not stated

Pros

• A clear no-AI commitment
• UK PAs with healthcare call experience
• Recordings of every call, and three plan types to choose from

Cons

• 90-day minimum term before the contract rolls monthly
• No diary software named, so check yours is supported
• Evening and weekend support is listed on the Inclusive Minutes plan, from £115 a month

6. Connect Communications: best for clinics on TM3 that want a low entry price

Connect Communications is a general telephone answering service for small businesses, with UK-based operators and an office in Edinburgh. It isn't built only for healthcare, but its diary plan names TM3, Cliniko, PracticePal, Bookeo and Google Diary, and its site has a case study from a chiropractic clinic in West Fife.

Billing is by message, not by minute: on the diary plan only messages sent to your business count against your allowance, not time on the phone. People answer from 8am to 6pm on weekdays. In the evenings and at weekends, an automated interactive service guides callers to leave their details, at no extra charge. That's an automated message service, not a person, so a clinic that wants live after-hours booking should look elsewhere.

Key features

• Classic plan for live message taking and call transfers
• Diary plan to book, amend, cancel and confirm appointments in your online diary
• Automated out-of-hours message service included
• WhatsApp alerts available

Best for

• Clinics on TM3 that want a person booking during office hours
• Small clinics that want the lowest published entry price and predictable message-based billing

Pricing (as of October 2026)

• Classic: from £14.99 a month
• Diary: from £80.29 a month
• Pro: price not published
• Tariffs from 5 to 5,000 messages a month
• All plus VAT; no set-up fee, and a 30-day trial that doesn't ask for a card
• Monthly rolling contract for tariffs under 1,000 messages, with one month's notice

Pros

• Lowest published starting price on this list
• Names TM3, which few services here do
• A month's trial and no long contract

Cons

• Not healthcare-specific
• Evenings and weekends are handled by an automated message service, not a person
• Pro plan price isn't published

7. Answer: best for small clinics with low, unpredictable call volumes

Answer (answer.co.uk) charges by the call with no monthly fee, and it has a healthcare page aimed at private clinics, consultants and dental practices. People answer 24/7 as standard, and the site says callers are never routed offshore. It also sells a cheaper AI virtual receptionist.

On a new enquiry, Answer captures the consultation type and timescales, then either books it "directly into your system" or passes it on. It doesn't name the booking software it works with. If a caller sounds urgent, Answer says it tries to put them through to someone at your clinic straight away, and if nobody's free it takes the details and marks the message urgent.

Key features

• 24-hour cover by people as standard, with no surcharge for nights, weekends or bank holidays
• Dedicated number or call divert at no extra cost
• No call duration limits for new customers
• AI virtual receptionist as a lower-cost option

Best for

• Single-practitioner clinics that get a handful of overflow calls a week
• Clinics that want no contract and no monthly fee

Pricing (as of October 2026)

• People: £2.20 a call plus VAT, no monthly fee
• Minimum credit £25; minimum one call a month
• Bundles with discounts of up to 20% (bundle prices not listed)
• AI virtual receptionist: from £10 a month plus 85p a call
• Texts 10p each plus VAT; no contracts

Pros

• No monthly fee and no contract
• 24/7 cover as standard, with no extra charge for after hours
• Choice of people or a cheaper AI

Cons

• No booking software named, so check yours before relying on it for bookings
• At steady volumes the per-call price adds up: 100 calls is £220 plus VAT, before any bundle discount

How to choose a telephone answering service for your clinic

Look at last month's calls before you look at prices: how many, what time of day, and what callers wanted. Then work through these questions.

Does it book into your diary, or just take a message?

A message is a job for tomorrow morning, and a new patient who rang three clinics may have booked elsewhere by then. If you want the booking made on the call, the service has to work in your software.

• On Cliniko, Splose, PracSuite or Nookal, and the calls you lose are evenings and weekends: Chimehill books into Cliniko and the other three while the caller is on the line.
• If you're on PPS, choose Clinic Answer or Message Direct; both name it.
• If you're on WriteUpp, Message Direct names it.
• If you're on TM3, Connect Communications names it for office-hours booking.
• On Semble, Pabau or another system none of them names: during the trial, ring in as a pretend new patient and check whether the appointment appears in your diary.

When do you need cover?

Some services answer 24/7 as standard (Chimehill, Message Direct, Answer). Others cover office hours and charge more for evenings and weekends, or hand those calls to voicemail or an automated message service (Face for Business's Taster plan, Connect Communications, Moneypenny's standard hours). If most of your missed calls come after 6pm, that difference matters more than the monthly price. Ask each provider who answers at 11pm on a Sunday, and what that caller is offered.

A person or an AI?

People handle odd calls well, and some patients simply prefer them. AI doesn't take breaks or go home, and it can book into the diary at 11pm if it's connected to your software. For a human voice on every call, the bureaus to look at are Face for Business, Clinic Answer and Message Direct. If most of your calls are routine bookings and your diary is one Chimehill supports, an AI receptionist will usually get more of them into the diary. Our clinic answering service page compares a staffed bureau with Chimehill, and says when the bureau is the better choice.

What will a normal month cost?

Providers here price in five different ways: per call (Answer, and Chimehill through a monthly call allowance), per minute (Clinic Answer), per second (Face for Business's Taster), per message (Connect Communications) and on quote (Moneypenny). Pull last month's call log from your phone system, note the number of calls and the average length, and price every service against that same month. Say you get 100 calls and they average two minutes: that's £220 plus VAT on Answer's people-based service, £129 plus VAT on Chimehill's smallest plan, and £219.80 on Clinic Answer (PA 180 at £160, 20 extra minutes at 99p, plus £40 for diary booking; VAT basis not stated). If they average four minutes, that's 400 minutes, past the 200 minutes after which Clinic Answer quotes a tailored plan, while the per-call prices stay the same. If your clinic isn't VAT-registered, the VAT is a real cost, so ask the three bureaus that don't state it whether their prices include it.

How long are you tied in?

Minimum terms range from none (Answer, Chimehill, Clinic Answer and Connect Communications on their rolling tariffs) to 90 days (Face for Business), three months (Message Direct's clinic page, Moneypenny's smaller schemes) and up to twelve months on Moneypenny's larger schemes. Read the notice period too; it is often a month, sometimes three.

What happens with patient data and urgent calls?

A caller who mentions their back pain or a recent operation is giving the bureau health data, which UK GDPR treats as special category data. That makes the answering service your processor, and you need a written contract with it covering what it does with that information. Ask where messages and call recordings are kept, and when they're deleted. Then ask what a PA or the AI does when a patient says something that sounds urgent on a Saturday night: who at your clinic is told, and how quickly. A receptionist service, human or AI, should never give clinical advice.

Questions clinics ask

What is the best telephone answering service in the UK for a clinic?

It depends on your diary software and when you miss calls. If you're on Cliniko, Splose, PracSuite or Nookal and most lost calls come after hours, we'd start with Chimehill. On PPS, Clinic Answer and Message Direct both name it; on WriteUpp, Message Direct does. Start from your software, then compare hours and price.

How much does a telephone answering service cost in the UK?

The lowest published entry prices on this list, as of October 2026, are Connect Communications at £14.99 a month and Message Direct at £19.20 a month. Answer has no monthly fee and charges £2.20 per call. Those starting prices rarely cover a busy clinic, so count last month's calls and ask each provider for a monthly figure on that volume.

Can a telephone answering service book appointments into our practice software?

Some can. Clinic Answer names PPS, Cliniko and Power Diary; Message Direct names PPS, Cliniko and WriteUpp; Connect Communications names TM3 and Cliniko. Chimehill books into Cliniko, Splose, PracSuite and Nookal itself. The others take a message for your team to book. Whichever you trial, ring in as a new patient and check the appointment lands in the right practitioner's column.

Do UK answering services cover evenings and weekends?

Message Direct and Answer both cover 24/7 as standard, and so does Chimehill. Moneypenny offers evenings, weekends and 24/7 on request. Face for Business adds evening and weekend support on its Inclusive Minutes plan, and Connect Communications uses an automated message service outside 8am to 6pm on weekdays. Clinic Answer doesn't list its hours on its site, so ask before you sign.

Is it safe to let an AI answer our clinic's phone instead of a bureau?

It can be, if it stays administrative. Check four things before you trust it with patients: it only answers from information your clinic has approved, it never gives clinical advice, it doesn't tell a patient they're booked until your diary has saved the appointment, and urgent calls go to a person under a script you've signed off. Ask any provider to show you each of those in a demo.

Do we need to change our clinic's phone number?

Usually not. With Chimehill you keep the number on your letterhead and divert calls to it, choosing every call, only when the line is engaged, or only out of hours. Answer gives you the choice of a divert or a dedicated number, at no extra cost. Ask each provider how its set-up works, and test the forwarding on your own phone system before the trial starts.

What should we ask before signing a contract?

Ask about the minimum term and notice period, what's included at the price you were quoted, whether VAT is on top, where call data is stored, and how urgent calls are handled. Run the trial over at least one weekend, then check on Monday morning how many of those calls became bookings and how many are messages your team still has to return.