NHS England has shared the latest updates on its NHS App Roadmap, including recently completed pilots, current areas of focus, and plans for future development.
The roadmap notes a list of NHS App integrated live partners and services, including providers such as Accurx and Anima Health for online consultations, Patients Know Best for personal health records, and DrDoctor and Health Call for secondary care.
On appointments, the roadmap details a recent pilot seeing patients on a patient-initiated follow-up (PIFU) pathway requesting follow-up appointments via the app, and work to improve main GP appointment booking by implementing the latest design standards. Current focus is on expanding the PIFU pathway to more patients, and improving how waiting list data is communicated. Next steps will be improving the experience of patients waiting for treatment and extending secondary care appointment management to those managing health services for others.
Recently completed projects around integrated services have included a trial of AI-enabled triage in a GP surgery, which NHS England is now looking to expand to a larger area, and the integration of a new service to check and book RSV vaccinations. A new vaccinations hub bringing together existing and new digital vaccination services is to be developed, and more online consultation services are to be introduced to increase the number of users who can access medical advice in this way.
The ability to view and track prescription statuses has recently been extended to 18.5 percent of pharmacies, NHS England states, and notifications to patients when prescriptions are ready to collect are now live in 104 pharmacies. Prescription status will be rolled out to more users, whilst patients will be able to see their full list of repeat prescriptions, it continues. Future steps will involve helping users set repeat prescription reminders and “understanding how the NHS App can be used as a front door to pharmacy services”.
On health records and messaging, NHS England has been looking to help users find information in their appointment notes and documents in the GP health record, and supporting GP surgeries in adopting GP Connect APIs. Since the start of 2025, notification opt-in rate has increased by eight percent, with 88 percent of active users opted in for push notifications to be notified of new messages. Currently, the focus is on onboarding new services and adding new message types, as well as enabling digital letters from secondary care to be viewed in the app inbox.
Elsewhere, NHS England offers updates covering success in reducing login time by around three seconds, the introduction of prompts to users to login using biometric options, and upcoming tests on a version of the app built using native code and design conventions “to understand the benefits of this approach”.
Wider trend: NHS App
With the publication of the 10 Year Health Plan, the government has outlined the role of the NHS App in its health system of the future, highlighting AI-enabled features, links with wearable tech, and access to the Single Patient Record. Sir Jim Mackey, chief executive at NHS England, said: “The NHS App will be at the heart of the tech transformation we’re planning for the NHS to give people much more ownership of their healthcare – all from wherever they are at the tap of a screen.” The NHS App will become a “doctor in their pockets” for patients as a tool for access, empowerment, and care planning, creating a “full front door to the entire NHS”.
NHS England’s Digital, Data and Technology Committee offered an update on the development of the NHS App in summer of 2025, stating the importance of agreeing where strategic decision-making sits to ensure alignment across the system. The committee also discussed the prioritisation of features, “in particular delivery of improvements patients want most from a digital service, but are technically difficult due to legacy systems across the NHS”.
Patient initiated follow up (PIFU) appointments have been integrated into the NHS App at The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, said to promote convenience for patients on PIFU pathways in requesting, confirming, rebooking, or cancelling appointments. Integration with the NHS App follows a successful trial which took place on a single PIFU pathway earlier in December, with integration now planned for all PIFU pathways. “It’s estimated around 8,000 PIFU appointment pathways could benefit from the integration by the end of 2026,” the trust states.
An end of year update from NHS England has revealed that the NHS App has now reached more than 39 million users, with 62.3 million logins in November, and 67.8 million repeat prescriptions ordered through the app in the past 12 months. Zubir Ahmed, health innovation minister, shared these latest stats, reflecting: “From prescription trackers to family features, we’ve upgraded the app this year to make it more helpful, and we are striving to deliver more improvements in the New Year as we build towards the launch of the NHS virtual hospital. Our 10 Year Health Plan is already shifting care from analogue to digital and building an NHS that is fit for the future and fit for us all.”
