The Division for Well being and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England and NHS Digital have revealed plans for numerous new options to be added to the NHS App.
Some new options are already within the early levels of being rolled out. Presently, sufferers underneath 20 NHS trusts, together with in York, Scarborough and Cornwall, have the flexibility to view referrals and hospital appointments, e book appointments and discover supporting info forward of their appointments, comparable to hospital maps.
Sufferers are empowered to e book, change and cancel their appointments themselves because of the brand new function. It’s also serving to to save lots of worthwhile clinician and admin time throughout the NHS.
By March 2023 an additional 24 NHS trusts are anticipated to even have this capability throughout the NHS App.
DHSC has additionally introduced that the app will roll out further performance over the course of the approaching 12 months, together with the reserving of flu vaccinations and the flexibility to entry correspondence comparable to pre-consultation questionnaires.
Well being and Social Care Secretary, Steve Barclay, stated: “Know-how is reworking the way in which we use the NHS and, with over 30 million sign-ups to the NHS App throughout the nation, together with seven million this 12 months alone, there may be large potential to modernise providers for sufferers and workers.”
He continued: “We’ve added progressive new options – from accessing GP data to reserving COVID-19 jabs – that may assist us ease pressures on GPs and different main care providers and supply simpler, personalised care.”
Final 12 months noticed new introductions to the NHS App together with sufferers having the ability to entry their GP data in addition to e book their Covid-19 jabs. One new function already rolled out to just about 2,000 GP practices enabled sufferers to obtain notifications from their GP. In 2022, this service noticed over 700,000 messages despatched to sufferers, together with appointment reminders and check outcomes.
Greater than 28,000 bookings for Covid-19 jabs have been made by way of the app within the first 4 weeks for the reason that function was added to the NHS App in November.
Simon Bolton, interim chief govt at NHS Digital, stated: “The NHS App continues to alter the way in which individuals in England entry healthcare providers. Because it was launched 4 years in the past, hundreds of thousands of individuals have used it to e book GP appointments, order repeat prescriptions and examine GP data.
“We’ve additionally added new options to the app to assist individuals handle hospital appointments, e book Covid-19 vaccinations and obtain messages from GPs. The NHS App is a superb instance of how know-how can be utilized to assist individuals take management of their healthcare, and entry NHS providers rapidly and simply.”
The brand new options to the NHS App mirror the DHSC’s Plan for Digital Well being and Social Care, which was printed in June 2022.
Seven million new NHS App sign-ups have been recorded in 2022, and the app hit the milestone of 30 million sign-ups again in September final 12 months.
