Millions of people will now be able to use the NHS App to view their prescriptions for the first time.
Following a successful trial last year involving over a million users, NHS England is adding the new service to the app, which will allow patients to see when their prescriptions have been issued and view their prescribed medication. Users without a nominated pharmacy will be able to use a barcode in the app to collect their prescription from any pharmacy instead of needing a paper version, while anyone who has a nominated pharmacy can continue to collect medication without a paper prescription or barcode as details are sent to their pharmacy electronically. In addition, patients waiting for an elective hospital treatment will also now be able to see the average waiting time for their procedure,
The new features are being added as the NHS runs a campaign to encourage more people to use the app in their everyday lives and help free up time on the frontline. Each repeat prescription ordered electronically saves GP practices three minutes of time, with those ordered using the app expected to save the equivalent of 1.85 million hours in 2024. Patients also save an average of 18 minutes with each online order.
New figures show that the NHS App has gained 33.6 million registered users – equivalent to around three quarters of the adult population – since its launch five years ago. Monthly traffic to the app has risen by more than half in the past year, and the total number of monthly logins has increased by 54% over 12 months.
NHS chiefs have praised the huge progress made on the NHS app over the last five years which is becoming the ‘front door’ to a range of NHS services, including:
- The number of appointments viewed or managed through the app has more than doubled in the last year, from 1.95 million in November 2022 to 4.1 million in November 2023.
- There were 10.7 million views of patient records in the app last month, compared to 5.8 million in November 2022.
- The number of repeat prescriptions has risen by almost half (48%) from 2.2 million in November 2022 to 3.2 million in November 2023.
- Over the last five years, a total of 66.1 million repeat prescription have been ordered through the app, saving valuable time for patients and clinicians.
- There has been a 6% increase in the number of over 50s signing up for the NHS App in the last three months, following the introduction of new services including vaccine bookings.
- Recent statistics also show that pensioners are the most active users of the NHS App. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of the 3.6 million registered users aged over 66 have accessed the app within the past three months, including more than 256,400 in their 80s and almost 17,100 aged 90 and over.
More details on how to register with the NHS App are available at www.nhs.uk/nhs-app
