Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to make administrative processes in the NHS a priority for staff and patients, and to set goals for improving and measuring people’s experience of administration.

The Government is committed to improving National Health Service administrative processes, which are a crucial factor for patient experience. This includes reforming the digital landscape to improve efficiency and convenience for patients. We are changing the NHS App as part of our shift from an analogue to digital service, to make it quicker and easier for patients to access information about appointments. By the end of March 2025, 85% of acute trusts will enable patients, who wish to use it, to view appointment information via the NHS App.

Two-way communication, for example via patient engagement portals, is also important and enables patients and their healthcare team to send messages and documents. An improved NHS App will help with this, and NHS England will provide support to all acute trusts adopting these technologies.

In addition to improving communication with patients, we are taking action to reduce the burden of administration for clinicians in between seeing patients. This includes the Red Tape Challenge, launched in October 2024 by the Government and NHS England, which is looking to address bureaucracy between primary and secondary care to ensure health professionals can make the most effective use of clinical time.