NELFT is excited to announce the expansion of Harper, an artificial intelligence (AI) virtual agent designed to make managing appointments faster, easier, and more convenient.

Harper is now live across children’s therapy services in Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest, supporting appointment management for occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and speech and language therapy (service availability varies by borough).

Harper is a text-based virtual assistant that allows the user to view upcoming appointments, request appointment changes, including cancellations or rescheduling. Available on selected service pages, Harper provides a more efficient way to interact with services without the need for a phone call.

Harper can be accessed directly through the NELFT website by clicking the pink ‘Chat now’ button located at the bottom right of the service pages.

Key information will need to be provided when interacting with the virtual agent. This is a standard security requirement even if a patient is on Trust premises. The virtual agent will ask for either of the following:  

Harper is now live with the following eight services:

For more information about Harper, please click here.