Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the Patient Coalition for AI, Data and Digital Tech in Health report entitled Public and Patient Experience of the NHS app, published on 27 March 2024.

We recognise that digital skills levels are not universal, including amongst those people who need our health services the most. NHS England is therefore collaborating with local organisations and charities to include NHS App support in their outreach programmes. Alongside this, we have a priority programme to develop secure and safe ways for families and carers to access the NHS App on behalf of other people. The efficiency that the NHS App brings to frontline health services frees up staff to reach people who cannot access digital services via face-to-face and telephone appointments which will continue to be available.

The Department is not planning to publish a formal response to the report, but will use the recommendations to inform ongoing work to improve the App.

People can currently log in to the NHS App with their face ID or fingerprint and can be remembered on their device too. We are introducing more automated ID checks and new forms of login in the next 6 months, to make it even quicker for people to register and log in to the NHS App across a range of devices. This includes our web version that people without smartphones can access.

In the short term, we are making it easier to read information in the medical record, appointment lists, test results and prescription information. NHS England is making strategic changes in how the data is sent from system suppliers which will allow it to be more clearly presented.

We are updating plans to help frontline staff support their patients to use the NHS App, through training and support. This will be backed up by improvements to existing help pages and support processes and redesigning the contact form to make sure queries can be quickly resolved.

NHS England will work closely with frontline staff, Patient Participation Groups and our large App Ambassador network so that they can explain the NHS App to patients. This network will be expanded so that awareness of the support offer is raised further as suggested in the report.