Built inside a real practice, run by the person who answers its phone
I'm Gavin Winstanley. I own Winstanley & Son, an independent practice in Dingle, Liverpool, and Crewley is the automation estate I built to run it, before it was anything I sold to anyone else. The practice management software stays and clinical records never leave it; Crewley is the operational layer around it. What each agent does is set out on AI agents for opticians.
Why I built it
The practice was getting busier, and the honest maths of hiring troubled me, not because staff cost money, but because of what the job would actually be. I did not want to pay good people to chase lab orders and untangle lens pricing errors. I wanted every person on the floor facing patients. Automating that admin was not a side project. It was the only way I could see to hire well.
The hiring flip
Here is the part I did not expect. Now that agents carry the admin, I am more confident hiring, not less. A new hire walks into a different job: the chasing, ringing and confirming has already happened, so the only thing left to think about is the patient in front of them and what would genuinely serve them best. That is the moment revenue in an opticians is actually decided. Hiring used to mean maintaining service levels. Now it drives growth. Our AI didn't replace anyone. It's the reason we're hiring.
What I found when I looked properly
Building the estate turned into an audit discovery I was not expecting. It found recall flags that a housekeeping setting had silently switched off, and nobody had noticed because no dashboard flagged it. That finding, and what it cost the practice, is the reason the audit is the first thing offered to every practice Crewley talks to. The full story is on the case study page.
What runs Crewley today
Nine agents run live inside Winstanley & Son as of August 2026, covering reception, patient messaging, the phone, document intake and daily reporting. I am the person who answers the phone here, and the one who gets told first if something in the estate misbehaves. That is not a slogan. It is the actual arrangement: built inside a real practice, run by the person who answers its phone.
What Crewley will not do to your practice
Your practice management software stays. Clinical records never leave it. Crewley runs the operational layer only, and we work with one practice per area, with exclusivity guaranteed six months at a time, renewing for as long as they are a client. Read the full position on honest AI and the terms on pricing.
Why an owner, not an agency
Every source we looked at on how practice owners actually buy says the same thing: they trust industry peers and people who have already used what is being sold, far more than they trust a vendor's sales pitch. That is the whole reason Crewley exists in this form. I built this for my own family's practice because I was the one answering the phone, not as a product looking for a customer. Winstanley & Son's real edge in Liverpool has never been the automation itself. It is its location, its NHS contract and its reputation, built over years with roughly 7,700 patients. The estate is what protects that, not what replaces it.
See it
[FILL: headshot]
[FILL: practice photo]
If you would rather see the estate than take our word for it, come and stand in the practice and watch it run.
Start with an audit of your own recall data and response times.
Book a free recall and response audit