The NHS App allows patients using the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

in England to book appointments with their GP, order repeat prescriptions and access their GP record. The app can also be used to access

NHS 111 111 is a free-to-call single non-emergency number medical helpline operating in England, Scotland and Wales. The 111 phone service has replaced the various non-geographic 0845 rate numbers and is part of each country's National Health Service: i ...

, set patients' data sharing preferences, and record organ donation preferences and end-of-life care preferences. All GPs in England are required to give their patients access to their health record via the NHS app. The app allows a user to manage healthcare services for others, such as parents or spouses. Available since late 2018, the app was developed by

NHS Digital NHS Digital was the trading name from 2016 of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which was the national provider of information, data and IT systems for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in health and social care in England, p ...

and

NHS England NHS England, formally the NHS Commissioning Board for England, is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care. It oversees the budget, planning, delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning si ...

Development

Health minister

Jeremy Hunt Sir Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (born 1 November 1966) is a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2022 to 2024 and Foreign Secretary from 2018 to 2019, having previously served as Secretary of State for Health a ...

laid down eight "challenges" for the development in September 2017: *Symptom checking and triage *Access to your medical records *GP appointment booking *Repeat prescription ordering *Changing data sharing preferences *Changing organ donation preferences *Changing end of life care choices *Promoting "approved apps" to patients Hunt and his successor

Matt Hancock Matthew John David Hancock (born 2 October 1978) is a British politician who served as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2015 to 2016, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from January to July 20 ...

stressed their support for the project. Hancock presented it as key to a radical overhaul of NHS technology. Hunt said it would mark "the death-knell of the 8am scramble for GP appointments that infuriates so many patients". The app was piloted from October 2018, and plans were to roll it out across England in December 2018. Patients were to be sent a text message from their GP practice inviting them to download the app. It was released for testing in September 2018 in Liverpool, Staffordshire, Redditch and Bromsgrove, Wyre Forest and South Worcestershire, Wolverhampton, Hastings and Rother, and Bristol, North Somerset and Gloucestershire. Initially, it would offer symptom checking and triage; appointment booking; repeat prescription ordering; access to patient records; national data opt-out; and organ donation preference. The launch of the app was accompanied by a decision that the name NHS Choices was to be abandoned, and in future the NHS site was to be called "the NHS website". In November 2018, it was reported that although it would be publicly available in the

App Store An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not i ...

and

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

store, as well as a desktop webpage by the end of December, it would be made operational to patients "one

STP STP may refer to: Places * São Tomé and Príncipe (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, IOC country code, and FIFA country code STP) * St Pancras railway station (National Rail code STP) * St. Paul Downtown Airport (IATA airport code STP) in Saint Paul, Mi ...

or one CCG at a time", a process which was expected to take several months. From 2019, it was planned to support GP video consultations and connect to an

Apple Watch The Apple Watch is a brand of smartwatch products developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple. It incorporates activity tracker, fitness tracking, Health (Apple), health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates wit ...

FitBit Fitbit is a product lining, line of wireless-enabled wearable technology, physical fitness monitors and activity trackers such as smartwatches, pedometers and monitors for heart rate, quality of sleep, and stairs climbed as well as related soft ...

. Later development includes plans to link up with the

NHS e-Referral Service The NHS e-Referral Service (ERS) is an electronic referral system developed for the Health and Social Care Information Centre by IT consultancy BJSS. It is used by NHS England and it replaced the Choose and Book service on 15 June 2015. The launch ...

to allow patients to book hospital or clinic appointments. In January 2019, the app was available for downloading, but according to

, GP practices would need to "review some of their system settings before they can go live". It was intended to be fully operational by 1 July 2019. The app uses the NHS login to verify the identity of users. After the establishment in early 2019 of

NHSX NHSX was a United Kingdom Government unit from early 2019 to early 2022, with responsibility for setting national policy and developing best practice for National Health Service (NHS) technology, digital and data, including data sharing and trans ...

as a central IT department for the NHS, chief executive

Matthew Gould Matthew Steven Gould (born 20 August 1971) is a British former civil servant and diplomat who is the Chief Executive Officer of international science-led conservation charity Zoological Society of London (ZSL). He was previously National Dire ...

stated that the app should not have any more features, but should be a platform allowing "other people innovate on top of it".

Reception

The

British Medical Association The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union and professional body for physician, doctors in the United Kingdom. It does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The BMA ...

said in 2025 that there is a risk that reliance on the app would "discriminate or alienate" patients who did not have access to digital technology.

Added features

Since 2020, facial verification can be used to authenticate new sign-ups to the app. To take advantage of this, users submit a photo from an official document such as a

passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that certifies a person's identity and nationality for international travel. A passport allows its bearer to enter and temporarily reside in a foreign country, access local aid ...

or a

driving licence A driver's license, driving licence, or driving permit is a legal authorization, or the official document confirming such an authorization, for a specific individual to operate one or more types of motorized vehicles—such as motorcycles, car ...

. The app's developers said this feature could also be used for COVID-19 "immunity passports" providing documented proof of users' immunity due to a past infection, an idea which proved controversial. Since 17 May 2021, the app can display

COVID-19 vaccination A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19). Knowledge about the structure and func ...

records, initially to assist users in proving their vaccination status when travelling overseas. In the following months, this feature was given the name 'NHS COVID Pass' and began to be used by venues and businesses in England. The app has been further developed to allow users to manage healthcare services for others, such as parents or spouses.

Statistics

As of December 2023, 33.6 million people were registered with the NHS app. , the app had almost 5 million monthly users. In May and June 2021, over 1.2million repeat prescriptions and 100,000 GP appointments were arranged through the app. By mid-July, eight weeks after the addition of COVID-19 vaccination status, over 10 million users had registered with the app. By June 2022 there were 28 million patients registered. In the year to May 2022, over 16 million repeat prescriptions were ordered, 1.3 million GP appointments were booked, GP records were viewed more than 90 million times and 277,000 organ donation decisions were registered.

References

External links