NHS England’s notify a patient service will begin rolling out this summer across integrated care systems.
The centrally-funded service is currently being piloted by some integrated care boards when patients transfer between GP practices. It can be used to send a message to a patient in the NHS App, or by email, text message or post to notify them that their registration with a new GP has been accepted.
NHS England has stated that the national service will start to be available as part of a wider roll-out plan from this summer, with an aim to be available to all GP practices by the end of the year. They added that with the service offering “message handling centrally” practices may “consider how they manage the confirmations they currently send”.
Some of the aims of the programme are to reduce administration activities for GP practices and to keep patients informed on the status of their registration. It hopes to “reduce the number of calls from patients to confirm their registration status” and to “offer a trusted and secure alternative to text messages or letters”.
On the future scope of the programme, NHS England added: “the service also has the potential to expand to notify patients when any changes are made to their details in the Personal Demographics Service.”
The service is currently an opt-in programme, with further information available on the NHS England website here.
Recently at HTN, we published our deep dive into what does ‘good’ look like in digital primary care and covered a keynote speech at London Tech Week, where Lord Markham focused on the future plans of the NHS App to include mental health and MSK tools.
