NHS App features for hospital appointments

The NHS App provides patients with a single place where they can view and manage their hospital referrals and appointments. The current features for hospital referrals and appointments are:

core features 

• view referrals and appointments in one place
• single point of contact for appointments
• supporting information for appointments

additional features

• book, change and cancel appointments
• receive notifications and messaging
• complete questionnaires
• access documents
• select paperless preferences

82 trusts are live with the core features, and 38 of those are live with a mixture of additional features.

Patients can view their hospital referrals and future appointments in one place on the NHS App.

How it works

The NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) 

Using the NHS App, patients will be able to see directly bookable and indirectly bookable referrals.

Directly bookable Patients will be able to see referrals to directly bookable services, in which they will be able to select a clinic (from a subset selected by GPs) and then select a specific booking slot. When confirmed, this is converted into an appointment (see the book, change and cancel feature).

Indirectly bookable Patients can see referrals which they can ask to book. They will not be able to select a time and date. The clinic will send at time and date and they are able to confirm this appointment.

Patients will also be able to:

• see all Referral Advisory Service (RAS) requests including the status - if accepted, a time and date for their appointment will be generated and an appointment will be made visible
• see booked future appointments from directly bookable referrals
• edit or cancel a booking via e-RS

Portal provider data

The NHS App will:

• display all future hospital appointments across trusts, including location and date
• seamlessly connect patients to further information and amendment capabilities in portals, without having to exit the NHS App or log in more than once

For each appointment, patients will see a single point of contact for the service currently administering their care, enabling them to direct their query to the right team.

This contact information is an email address and/or a phone number.

Patients can access supporting information to help prepare for their hospital appointments. 

This includes details of the appointment time and date and, where available, maps and directions.

This also includes relevant documents for patient’s appointments on the appointment page, offering patients useful information ahead of their visit.

Patients can book, change and cancel their hospital referrals and appointments. 

How it works 

The NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)

For directly bookable referrals - patients will be able to see referrals to directly bookable services, in which they will be able to select a clinic (from a subset selected by GPs) and then select a specific booking slot. When confirmed, this is converted into an appointment.

For booked appointments - the first outpatient appointments booked via e-RS are visible to patients. They can cancel or request a direct amendment. e-RS appointments take precedence over portal appointments where a match is made.

Portal provider data

All following outpatient appointments are managed by portal providers and displayed on the NHS App.

For rescheduling appointments - there are two types of rebooking: synchronous and asynchronous. Some portal providers offer synchronous rescheduling, while others offer asynchronous rescheduling. Synchronous requests can be rebooked directly by patients into the Patient Administration System (PAS). Asynchronous sends the requests to a staff member at the trust to process and update. Asynchronous requests to amend or cancel an appointment will show in the NHS App with a pending status until the request is processed. If the request is not accepted it will stay as a patient’s booked appointment. Some portal providers may have their own booking team and run this as a service. 

For cancelling appointments - - like rescheduling, cancellation is synchronous and asynchronous, depending on the portal provider managing the appointment. Synchronous will cancel the booking in the PAS and asynchronous will send it to a staff member to process. Certain bookings (such as urgent referrals) cannot be cancelled and the option will be hidden.

Patients will receive notifications and messages from the NHS App as their primary communication channel, notifying them of any changes or actions they need to take in their healthcare journey.

This includes notifications about changes or reminders about their hospital appointments, documents, or questionnaires (for example cancelled or upcoming appointment or incomplete questionnaire), and broadcast messages (for example department temporary closure).

Patients may also receive notifications from existing channels delivered by PEPs, such as SMS or email, and will be able to view messages in the NHS App message centre.

Patients who wish to receive notifications and messages via the NHS App will need to ensure they have enabled notifications for the NHS App on their mobile device, and on the NHS App as well.

This can be done on the NHS App by selecting More on the NHS App homepage, then selecting Account and settings, then Manage notifications, and switching the radio button to on for Send me notifications about new messages.

Patients can find help with registering and using the NHS App by visiting the nhs.uk website your account and settings in the NHS App. 

Patient journey

1. Patient receives native push notifications from the NHS app.

2. Log in to the NHS App.

3. You will be taken to the NHS App messaging service to view your messages and your actions. Continue with the patient journey. 

Patients can access documents associated with their hospital appointments via the NHS App.

This includes appointment letters, outcome letters, and discharge summaries. Patients will be notified when they have a document to read and be able to view the status of that document. 

Patients will also be able to download their documents for their records.

How to view appointment letters on the NHS App

Patients can complete pre-consultation and waiting list validation questionnaires associated with their hospital appointments.

This includes notifications about new and updated questionnaires for their attention, to support patients to complete their actions where required. 

Patients will also be able to download a copy of their questionnaires for their records. 

If patients do not complete their questionnaires through the NHS App (or the patient portal or trust online means otherwise), existing trust workflows would apply.

Patients are now able to access their hospital appointment documents on the NHS App without the need for a paper copy.

Patients can view information about what paperless means and covers and, in trusts who have this functionality enabled via their portal provider, select or change their paperless preference.

Alternatively, patients can instead request a paper copy of any letter by post, in trusts who have this functionality enabled via their portal provider. 

Patients' preferences will be maintained if they have already selected a preference in the patient portal, and any change they make will change both on the patient portal and on the NHS App.

The screenshots of the NHS App paperless preferences feature for hospital appointments are an example template. There will be differences on the NHS App depending on the portal provider a trust is partnered with. However, the patient journey remains the same for all the features.

Patient journey