How the Messages inbox works

Overview

The Messaging section of the Practice Portal shows all messages sent via our messaging partner, including an Inbox view and a Failed view. This article explains what the failed messages list shows, what the statuses mean, and what action a practice can take.

Inbox vs Failed

• Inbox: The inbox is used to track NDPP referral questionnaire responses for patients with newly diagnosed or existing pre-diabetes (NDH), and responses to messages with a self-booking link prompting a patient to book an appointment. One ticket is created per message response with suggested next steps, assignee, and a "Save to record" button where the message was not automatically saved to the patient's record. Tickets may be assigned, filtered by My inbox, All tickets, or Unassigned, and closed once actioned.

• Failed: a filterable list of failed messages across message types and statuses (Declined, Fatal, and so on), with a "Mark as done" action per row. It is a quicker way to scan and filter failures in bulk rather than working through them as individual tickets.

Patient responses

Patients cannot reply to standard messages sent via our messaging partner through the current GP Automate setup. However, patients can respond to NDPP referral questionnaires (Yes or No) or book appointments via self-booking links if this is set up within your configuration. This can be checked within the Inbox section.

Failed messages list

The Failed tab (Messaging > Failed) lists messages from our messaging partner that did not reach the patient. It is recommended that practices review this list regularly to ensure that patients that have not received a message are contacted by the practice via an alternative method.

Message statuses

Declined accounts for the large majority of failures. It does not indicate a fault with our messaging partner or the Practice Portal. It simply means the phone number or email address held for that patient is not valid.

What action a practice can take

If a practice wants to follow up, both the 'Inbox' and 'Failed' tabs should be checked, since they can list different messages. Using the Failed tab:

1. Open Messaging > Failed.

2. Filter by status (for example, Declined or Fatal) to see the messages that will not resolve on their own.

3. For each affected patient, check and update their contact details in EMIS if they are found to be incorrect.

4. Contact the patient via an alternative channel (e.g. phone, letter, SMS, email) if the message was time-sensitive.

5. Use "Mark as done" to clear the item from the failed list once the patient has been contacted another way, or once the practice is satisfied no further action is needed. This only updates the item's status in the portal; it has no effect on EMIS or on the patient record.

Using the Inbox tab, the same kind of follow-up can be done ticket by ticket: open a ticket to see the failure reason and suggested next steps, use "Save to record" if the message was not automatically saved to the patient's record, then close the ticket once resolved.

Retry-status messages do not need manual action. These are still being attempted automatically by the provider.

Key points for practices

• The inbox contains responses from patients for NDPP referral questionnaires and self-booking links. This will only be relevant for practices that have this as part of their configuration.

• The failed and decline lists are provided for practices to contact patients via an alternative method.

• Most failures are due to incorrect or outdated patient contact details, not a system fault.

• "Mark as done" only clears the portal item; it does not update EMIS or notify the patient.