Crossword Genius

Healthcare provider's customers centrally held in automated systems (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

boots

'healthcare provider's' is the definition.
(Boots is a chain of pharmacists)

'customers centrally held in automated systems' is the wordplay.
'centrally' says to take the centre.
'held in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'automated systems' becomes 'bots' (a bot is an automated computer system).
The middle letter of 'customers' is 'o'.
'o' placed into 'bots' is 'BOOTS'.

(Other definitions for boots that I've seen before include "Footwear" , "shoe cleaner" , "Kicks" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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