NHS App Roadmap

We are always working to improve the NHS App. Read about what’s been recently delivered, what we’re currently working on and what’s coming up next.

The NHS App's roadmap is focused on work that contributes towards these high level objectives:

Improve health outcomes

Support users to prevent, improve and manage ill health, for example by:

putting them in control of their own health and care, and the health and care of those they care for
increasing their skills, confidence, knowledge and capacity for self-advocacy
connecting them to health prevention services

Deliver productivity growth and cost savings

Free up time for frontline teams and reduce administrative overheads, for example by:

increasing users’ ability to self-serve, for example booking and managing appointments
supporting operational efficiency, for example reducing do not attends and unnecessary queries to GP surgeries
reducing operational costs, for example replacing SMS and letters with NHS App messages
helping users get to the right place, first time
designing NHS App services in a way that supports the priorities of the health system

This roadmap covers the work of the NHS App team. It does not cover all of the digital services mentioned in the 10 Year Health Plan for England or the Medium Term Planning Framework.

Triage, referrals and appointments

Each month, there are around 10 million visits from users to view or manage their hospital appointments, helping them to manage their care and avoiding do-not-attends. More than 400,000 GP surgery appointments are booked or cancelled on the NHS App each month and there are around 3.5 million visits to online consultation services or people to ask their GP about a health problem.

We are now building on these foundations to support delivery of these priorities from the 10 Year Health Plan: 

using AI-assisted triage models and data-driven pathways to guide people to the service they need quickly and provide those who need an appointment with the ability to book one 
putting patients in control of their treatment pathways by giving them one place to manage all their appointments, referrals and interactions while bringing efficiencies that reduce referral-to-treatment times

see a list of all integrated online consultation and Patient Care Aggregator services currently live in the NHS App
started to provide clear information about the type of appointment (for example in-person or phone call) so that patients can prepare appropriately and avoid unnecessary trave
improved parts of the referral journey to give users greater transparency and more reliable referral status information

trialling AI-assisted triage across London 
building an AI-assisted triage service that can scale to a national level 
allowing more patients on a digital patient-initiated follow-up (PIFU) pathway to self-manage their follow-up care and access support when they need it 
enabling an invite-to-book model that lets patients with a hospital referral choose from available appointment slots, reducing inconvenient bookings and the need to reschedule 
improving signposting, labelling and navigation for GP appointment booking to help users understand the difference between online requests and direct booking and help guide them towards their best option  
enabling users whose GPs use systems based on GP Connect (patient facing) APIs to view and cancel GP appointments 
investigating a new way for accessing GP appointments that works alongside AI-assisted triage

extending secondary care appointment management to users who manage health services for others 
reviewing the end to end referrals experience to identify user needs, pain points, service ownership, technical dependencies and future opportunities
understanding options for categorising appointment data that minimises the need for GPs to change their processes or data

Prescriptions and medicines

Every month, NHS App users make around 7.7 million repeat prescription requests. Usage of this service is increasing over 25% year-on-year. Each request made digitally saves 3 minutes of GP surgery time compared to analogue methods. 

updated prescription screens to the latest version of the NHS App design system to keep them consistent and reduce maintenance overheads
extended the ability to view and track prescription statuses to 31% of pharmacies 
ready-to-collect prescription notifications are now live in 24% of pharmacies with prescription tracking enabled, helping patients collect medicines sooner

rolling out prescription status viewing and tracking to more users
rolling out ready-to-collect prescription notifications to more user
trialling a feature to help users set reminders to request repeat prescriptions, to support better medicines adherence, reduce last-minute requests and reduce unnecessary usage of the emergency prescriptions service
creating a version of the request a repeat prescription service using native iOS and Android design conventions to improve user experience
enabling prescription tracking for users who manage health services for others aged 10 or less 
improving content, labels and signposting for repeat prescriptions and emergency prescriptions to help users choose the correct service and reduce unnecessary emergency prescription requests
exploring consolidation of prescription screens from different data sources into one set of pages to increase parity across GP IT suppliers, provide a consistent user experience and minimise maintenance

reducing overprescribing, waste and its associated risks by encouraging patients to "only request the medicines that they need
understand pain points and challenges across the end-to-end request a repeat prescription service
exploring how to make electronic repeat dispensing (eRD) prescriptions visible in the NHS App

Health records

Every month, NHS App users view their GP health record more than 38 million times, including 14 million views of test results. This allows users to access their health information more quickly and reduces the number of requests for information going to GP surgeries. 

see a list of all integrated health record services currently live in the NHS App
improved the layout of the appointment notes screen to make it easier to read and as a foundation for future improvements

helping users to find specific information in the appointment notes part of their GP health record   
combining test results from different sources such as GP, home tests and devices in one unified feed
trialling supporting content from nhs.uk in NHS App test results to improve users’ understanding of test results

creating a version of the GP health record using native iOS and Android design conventions to improve user experience
replacing existing PDF conversion software with a modern, supported alternative so that users can continue to download documents from their GP record as PDFs
allowing users to download or share parts of their GP health record  
improving the layout of the documents screen to make it easier to read and as a foundation for future improvements

Notifications and messaging

Sending messages via the NHS App means that patients can access all of their messages in one  place, and avoids the cost of sending a letter or SMS.   

To support digital-first messaging, we’re working with NHS Notify to increase the number of messages that are read in the NHS App.

see a list of all notifications and messaging and NHS Notify integrations live in the NHS App
increased the notification opt-in rate across all users from 59% to 63% over the last 12 months; currently, 89% of active users (14.2 million people) are opted in to push notifications so are notified when they receive a new message

allowing users to give feedback about the quality of messages they receive in the NHS App 
exploring the use of push notifications, alerts and status updates for uses other than messaging, such as when a new test result is available 
creating a version of the inbox using native iOS and Android design conventions to improve user experience
working towards a single inbox for all messages, helping users to find messages more easily

continuing to enable more NHS services to send messages through the NHS App   
continuing to increase the number of users opted in to receive push notifications, and increasing how many NHS App messages are read quickly  
understanding how messaging and notifications should work for users who manage health services for other people

released major updates to the native shell (the technical foundations of the NHS App) to reduce timeout issues and login or session failures
improved a number error screens and other endpoints to give users clearer guidance about what they can do when they encounter them, and reduce the volume of support requests sent to our helpdesk

building a version of the NHS App homescreen and top-level screens using native iOS and Android design conventions to improve user experience
resolving an issue that causes some users’ NHS App sessions to time out   
exploring additional ways to personalise navigation in the NHS App 
integrating new services that allow people to order tests to complete at home and access digital therapeutics
understanding how to enable NHS App users to get a test that they need

rolling out a new pattern for navigating online consultation services to increase the number of people completing tasks on those services

see a list of all integrated services currently lice in the NHS App

supporting the use of password managers and passkeys on Apple iOS devices to help users log into the NHS App quicker and easier, and reduce the number of one-time passcode text messages sent
improving biometric (fingerprint, face or iris) login to increase user adoption and help users log in more quickly and easily
resolving various bugs and defects to improve experience of logging into the NHS App
making it easier for users to switch profiles and manage services for someone else 
enabling users whose GPs use systems based on GP Connect (patient facing) APIs  to apply for family and carer access in the NHS App
enabling family and carer access for users whose GPs use systems based on GP Connect (patient facing) APIs so they can manage health services for others

enabling users to see and control who is able to manage services on their behalf in the NHS App
allowing users with family and carer access to manage health services for people registered at a different GP surgery

Latest releases

For details of our latest releases, please see our release notes.

Further information

See the NHS App features for details of what people can do now in the NHS App.

See Chapter 3 of the 10 Year Health Plan to understand the longer-term direction of the NHS App.

See our promotional toolkit, designed to help you tell people, including your patients, about the NHS App.

See NHS App Management Information for published information about the number of users and usage for the NHS App, and for features that are available through the NHS App.

Last edited: 28 October 2026 7:46 am