Once you set a Recall Campaign to Active, Hippo takes care of the day-to-day recalling for you.
It will check for eligible patients each weekday, send recalls based on your campaign settings and continue picking up new patients as they become due.
This guide explains what happens behind the scenes while your campaign is running and answers some of the most common questions.
💡 Setting up a campaign for the first time? Start with How to Set Up an Automated Recall Campaign.
🗓️ When are recalls sent?
Hippo sends recalls Monday to Friday from 11am, excluding bank holidays.
If you make a campaign Active or resume it after 11am, recalls will begin from the next working day.
Hippo also receives updated patient information from EMIS or SystmOne every 24 hours. This means newly coded information will be reflected after the next data sync.
♾️ Does my campaign stop once everyone has been recalled?
No. A campaign remains Active until you pause it.
If there are no eligible patients on a particular day, Hippo simply won't send anything. The campaign stays Active and checks again on the next working day.
This means it can automatically pick up patients as they become eligible, for example when:
📅 A new QOF year begins on 1 April
🦛 A patient's Hippo Eligible date is reached
🆕 A new patient registers with the practice
🩺 New clinical information, such as a diagnosis or prescription, is recorded
You do not need to create the campaign again once the current group of patients has been recalled.
⚠️ If you no longer want a campaign to send recalls, make sure you pause it.
Any end date shown for the campaign is an estimate and does not automatically stop the campaign.
📨 How many recall messages will a patient receive?
This depends on the Recall Flow you've set for the campaign.
For example, if your Recall Flow contains an initial message and two reminders, a patient can receive up to three messages while they remain eligible.
Messages are also subject to your minimum number of days between recalls, which is 14 days by default.
This minimum applies across Hippo campaigns, rather than just within the individual campaign. So if a patient has recently received a message from another Hippo campaign, their next recall may wait until that minimum interval has passed.
Recall counts reset at the beginning of the new QOF year on 1 April.
What happens after the final reminder?
If the patient is still due after receiving all of their automated messages, they move to the Recall List for manual follow-up.
💡 See What Happens If a Patient Doesn't Respond After Automated Recalls? for more information.
📅 What if the patient has already booked?
Hippo can use your Appointment Skip Settings to avoid recalling patients who already have an appropriate appointment booked.
If a patient books but later receives another recall, check the Appointment Skip Settings in your Recall Config.
💡 Booking through a link and stopping future recalls are separate parts of the recall process. Your Appointment Skip Settings determine which existing appointments should prevent another recall from being sent.
📱 Will Hippo try a different communication channel?
Yes.
Hippo chooses the most appropriate available channel for each message in the patient's Recall Flow.
For example, if the first message is sent through the NHS App and the patient doesn't book, Hippo may use another available channel for their next reminder.
This happens at the next scheduled recall, rather than immediately after the first message.
You may also occasionally see a WhatsApp attempt followed shortly afterwards by an SMS. This is Hippo's delivery fallback working as expected, for example where a patient's mobile number isn't registered with WhatsApp.
💡 See How Hippo Decides Which Recall Method to Use for a full explanation.
⚠️ Custom message templates are not sent through WhatsApp.
🔢 How many recalls will my campaign send each day?
Each campaign has its own Maximum Recalls per Day, which you choose when setting it up.
Hippo also takes your available appointment capacity into account.
This means the number actually sent on a given day may be lower than your maximum. If there are no suitable appointment slots available, no new invites will be sent, but the campaign will remain Active and try again on a future working day.
You can change your daily limit by selecting ✏️ Edit on the campaign.
⏸️ What happens if I pause a campaign?
Pausing a campaign stops new recalls from being sent. It does not reset the campaign or lose a patient's progress.
When you resume it, patients continue from where they left off.
For example:
A patient receives Message 1 → campaign is paused → campaign is resumed → when the patient is next eligible, they continue to Message 2.
Super Users can pause and resume campaigns from the Recall Campaigns page.
💡 See How to Adjust or Pause a Campaign That's Already Running for more information.
👯 Why did a patient receive two recalls on the same day?
This can happen if the patient is eligible for two separate Active campaigns.
For example, if you have two overlapping NHS Health Check campaigns, the same patient could be eligible for both.
If this happens, check for:
Duplicate campaigns
Campaigns targeting overlapping groups
Targets or exclusions that may need adjusting
💡 See How Do I Choose Targets and Exclusions for a Campaign?
⚠️ Be careful when deleting and recreating campaigns. A newly created campaign starts its recall counts again, which can mean previously contacted patients receive a new sequence of messages.
🔁 Can a patient move back from the Recall List to automated recalls?
Yes, depending on why they moved to the Recall List in the first place.
Why they're on the Recall List | What happens next |
No usable contact details | Add or update their mobile number or email address in EMIS/SystmOne. Hippo will pick up the updated details after the next sync. |
Received all automated recalls for the QOF year | Their recall count resets from 1 April and they can become eligible for automated recalls again. |
Opted out of automated recalls | Open See Patient and select Opt back into automated recalls if the patient wishes to opt back in. |
🎟️ Can I upload my own list of patients to a campaign?
No. Recall Campaigns identify patients using the clinical indicators selected in Patient Selection.
If there's a clinical cohort you'd like to recall but can't find an appropriate indicator in the Hippo Targets Glossary, get in touch with us and we can help.
What about one-off clinics?
You can still use a Recall Campaign for things like a flu walk-in clinic.
For example, you could:
Create a campaign targeting the appropriate flu indicator
Turn online booking off
Use a custom message telling patients when and where to attend
Pause the campaign once the clinic has taken place
That final step is important. If the campaign remains Active, Hippo will continue picking up newly eligible patients.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Our campaign has sent all of its reminders. Do we need to set it up again?
No. Leave the campaign Active.
Patients who have completed their Recall Flow won't simply start it again, but the campaign will continue identifying newly eligible patients.
Can we send recalls weekly instead of daily?
Recall Campaigns run each working day rather than on a weekly schedule.
If you want tighter control over volume, you can reduce your Maximum Recalls per Day or pause and resume the campaign when required.
How do we stop recalling patients for something our practice doesn't offer?
If you only want to remove it from one campaign, select ✏️ Edit, go to Patient Selection, and remove the relevant target.
If you need help changing which indicators are available or used more widely at your practice, get in touch with us.
🦛 In summary
Once a campaign is Active, you don't need to keep restarting or rebuilding it.
Hippo will:
✅ Check for eligible patients each working day
✅ Send recalls according to your Recall Flow
✅ Respect your daily limits and available appointment capacity
✅ Pick up newly eligible patients over time
✅ Move patients to the Recall List when automated follow-up is complete
The main thing to remember is:
Active = Hippo keeps checking. Paused = Hippo stops sending.
If you're ever unsure why a particular patient is or isn't being recalled, you can also use the Patient Eligibility Checker within Recall Preview to see how they match the campaign rules.