NHS App

Having previously been using Babylon, when I could 24/7 book appointments online and in person easily (on the NHS), this NHS app is truly useless. The GP appointments fail to book - apparently I’m not eligible, and for some reason the app thinks I live in North London. The suggestion? Turn up in person at my surgery - the one thing the app is supposed to avoid. Great job!

App doesn’t know my standing prescriptions so I can’t request more

The app works. But it doesn’t work well. For starters, each time you open the app you have to login each and every time. Secondly, lack of support for modern security standards, for example no pass key support. Third, the “app” is just a web app wrapped in an iOS web kit view - please NHS you have 10s millions of customers - there are fully native apps with a few thousand users who provide a smoother UX using native technologies like swift or even hybrid technologies like flutter or react native. A web app for this is just the worst idea. Simple things like viewing a PDF requires you to copy it to a location and then open - the web app opened in safari gives a better experience, at least that previews PDFs and supports pass keys.

A useless and empty interface, after making you dance to get verified for two days it gives you access to only the standard online nhs info. If you want access to a test result you have to give permissions to a third company called ‘patients first’, which takes even longer and they are a private company! Why not just let them handle the app then? NHS has made some bad choices on selling data in the past (lazily anonymised - easy to work out who you are thru cross reference) why must they involve third parties - and why can’t they simply offer a service to see test results :(

So far from a good customer experience… Even the simplest of things such as managing a prescription is shockingly bad with no digital thread for the customer between GP and chemist IT systems. Is the prescription approved? Is it at the Chemist? Is it ready to collect.. instead the customer physically has to go and check - which defeats the object of a digital experience, builds frustration and then gets greeted with be considerate to staff! Who’s being considerate at the NHS to customers digital experience? Certainly not NHSX And then you receive feedback from the developer like below… that sends you to the NHS website (don’t get me started on digital thread and customer experience their) - the webpage then simply starts to make out that the user is the problem… It’s like no one in the NHS has digital client experience and therefore checks and interacts with the UI UX of their own digital toolset.. PS NHS developers I work in digital experience so don’t take the piss and simply bat the problem back to the user!

Tried the App again to see if there was any improvement, there wasn’t. It is still useless for items that are classed as non repeat but are required on an ad hoc basis. The app also doesn’t take into account the holiday periods and factor in the days that GP surgeries/pharmacies are closed so for items that are required on a regular basis but are not showing yet as being available to reorder. This app is very basic and has far less functionality than that my practice website had before they were forced to uses this trash. The developers might wish to review what GP functionality the practice websites used to provide with relation to prescriptions and consult non technically minded users of the system to find out what actual difficulties they are experiencing when reordering prescriptions. The current lack of functionality has resulted in my own case having to list all my current items that are required, on a regular and ad hoc basis, and submit this in person to the practice. This has therefore resulted in extra work/costs for the practice and myself.

Firstly, it’s quite an involved process to get this app set up, and involves sending a video of yourself, which I think is an invasion of privacy. Secondly, when you do finally get set up, the app is of little use if your GP shares only the most limited information with it, as mine does. Even if they use it to its full capacity, some information such as referrals will show in the app but others won’t, because they ‘use a different system’. So then you end up phoning the surgery anyway to check has the referral actually been made because, oh yes, some you will get a confirmation letter for and others you won’t. I am a supporter of the NHS in principle but I swear its admin systems are getting worse if anything and must be a huge cause of wasted resources. Feedback results in no improvements even when it’s something as crucial as track and trace. The more the NHS gets fragmented and outsourced, presumably, the worse this will get. Missing or unclear information could end up having a devastating impact for a patient. I realise this might not be the best forum for a rant but the app is emblematic of the problem: how much money has it cost, while ignoring and in fact amplifying the issues with the inconsistent underlying systems? Edit: Came to write a review only to find I’d already written this one a few years back, and it all still applies.

I find it a very frustrating app to use . If I need to change an appointment I go to do so but there is no option. It depends on what party is using what provider! For example I have one appointment that gives me all the options to do what I want, I have another hospital appointment that ( provided by Zesty) that gives me zero options. I am trying to go paperless with the NHS and can I find a way of doing so. No chance, like I said frustrating.

I tried to book an GP appointment today. The app showed me appointments for 2023! Help!!

A badge on the app icon whenever there is a message waiting for me would be helpful - and to be honest, pretty basic functionality.