Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of GP practices used the GP online appointment booking feature to make appointments available (a) online and (b) through the NHS App in 2023.
General practices (GPs) that have enabled the functionality of booking appointments digitally can offer this through a number of different Online Consultation Systems (OCS), including the NHS App. The Department does not hold data showing which system is used by each GP.
Of the 78% of GPs that have an operating OCS, 44.1% enabled their patients to book or cancel appointments within the last 12 months. In 2023, an estimated 2,160,594 GP appointments were booked through the NHS App.