Emma Halliday
Welcome to the Transforming Primary Care podcast. I’m your host for today, Emma Halliday, senior digital transformation manager at NHS England. And in today’s session, we’re going to get under the skin of the NHS App. That sounds really exciting.
I’m really looking forward to this session and I am joined by a fantastic panel of NHS App ambassadors from the North East and Yorkshire region, so for those who are not familiar with app ambassadors, they are NHS staff who are often from primary care, who champion the NHS App in their organisations.
So on today’s panel, we have Craig Benn who’s a digital support officer at Connexus Health, West Yorkshire, and Bex Cottey, business manager from Conisborough Group Practice in South Yorkshire. And we’re also joined by our guest speaker, who’s not from Yorkshire: we’ve got Dr Shanker Vijay, who’s a GP and digital transformation lead within the London region.
So I have got some really interesting questions lined up for them about how the NHS App works and what’s next. But before we get into those, I want to go over what the NHS App actually is and who it’s for.
So the NHS App is owned and run by NHS England and it gives people a simple and secure way to access a wide range of services. So whether you’re using it on a smartphone, a tablet or through a browser, which is called the NHS account, it puts key health tools and information right at your fingertips.
Some of the features include viewing your GP health record, ordering repeat prescriptions and now, thanks to a recent update, you can even sync appointments to your phone calendar, and many people can also use the app to view and manage hospital appointments, and more GP practices are sending direct messages and appointment reminders straight to patients through the app’s secure inbox.
In this episode, we’ll take a deeper dive into the NHS App and how it works. We’ll explore what practice teams can do to help patients get the most from it, and how this all supports better experiences for both patients and staff. So we’ll move on to the questions.
I think what’s really interesting about the NHS App is how much of it sits invisibly behind the scenes for both staff and patients. So a lot of work goes into making it feel simple and seamless, even though it connects to multiple systems in the background.
My question is, how does the NHS App link in with various systems to become a front door to NHS services? And who would like to go first or shall I pick on someone? OK, we’ve got Bex.
Bex Cottey
OK, so within our practice, we find that the NHS App is integrated as part of the front door. It gives people another option, another way in, another platform for them to use to contact the practice, whether that is digitally to get information or to request appointments and contact us and ask us for a call back or ask for an appointment or whatever.
So it becomes another way of contacting us. Normally people can walk in the front door, they can pick up the phone and call us, or they can use our online tool and our website link to that.
We’ve linked in the NHS App to be part of that integrated front door and I’m sure we’re going to talk about it in more detail in this podcast, it means many times if they go through that front door, they have the answers there and they actually don’t need us at the end of the day. They can get the answers they need without going any further through that process.
Emma Halliday
Wonderful. Thank you for that, Bex – I appreciate you. Shanker–
Dr Shanker Vijay
I’m actually going to add to this, it’s actually even the pathway to the front door. So yeah, where there’s the garden path, front driveway path, I don’t know, but we’ve got to remember it also helps them find NHS services so that whole find a dentist, find a GP if they haven’t even registered with a GP practice. They can do that through the NHS App, so is that whole experience up to that front door as well.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. Thank you, Shanker. I really like that. Craig – bring you in there.
Craig Benn
Yeah, I think it’s just one of the great things. I kind of see it as another way of giving power back to the patients as far as just the things that they can access and things that they can do. I think it’s really nice to be able to take control and that have that kind of self-management from – we’re all patients ourselves obviously.
So they’re all kind of things that we use and just the familiarity of actually being able to go to just one place to be able to access all of that rather than sometimes it’d be quite confusing if you’ve got several different ways of doing similar things.
Actually, just knowing that you can go to one place, a bit of like a one stop shop, just to be able to access all them services. It’s really convenient from personally from a patient’s point of view.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. OK. That’s fantastic. Thank you, Craig. OK. So we’ve been talking about it being the front door from a patient’s point of view. But now when we look about practices, how can we tell them what the benefits of it being the front door and how it’s integrated to so many different services?
Bex Cottey
Yeah. So just adding on to that. I mean, this is great because we get three people that all are coming at this a different perspective and from our practice perspective, I would say and when I’m talking to other people in other practices that are saying, ‘how much do you use it?’, and, ‘how much do you really encourage patients to use it?’; I say, ‘well, you know it’s there for both of us.’
It’s not just there for the patients to be able to see that information and get in touch with us, but it’s about us being able to communicate with them and say’ look, we know how frustrating it can be navigating primary care – if you go here, you get the information. It saves then that queue on the phone or that ‘when am I going to get a reply to my query that I’ve sent in another way?’ So that’s one way.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. Thank you. Bex and Shanker as a GP, how do you find that?
Dr Shanker Vijay
OK. I’m going to go back to that front door. I mean, why do we want to go through that front door? We’ve got to have a purpose – do we actually want to visit that person in the house.
So we got to understand that, you know, what is the functionality behind it.Why would it help that person going through that door to embrace it? So what can it do, but keep it in simple terms and I’m going to go back to that path. You know that first journey is how do I even get to that front door – how do I download it? How do I set it up? How do I set NHS login and that can be a bit confusing and if staff don’t understand it, they’re not going to feel comfortable to explain it to patients and vice versa.
So to do it in very simple terms, you know those great walkthrough videos that really start to produce for those guides, we have to understand it in very simple principles and it is the benefits. It’s not the physical door, it’s what’s behind the door that will get people to use it.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant, thank you. Anything else anyone wants to say? Oh, brilliant, Craig, I’ll invite you to speak.
Craig Benn
Yeah, it’s not trying to repeat on what Shanker said, but I think as far as just the familiarity, I think there’s obviously the integration on the clinical side with the clinical systems and the online consultation tools from a system point of view.
But actually from a staff and colleague point of view actually being familiar, I was kind of say this to staff and colleagues – actually being familiar with it yourself actually really helps you translate and be able to help and understand from another patient’s point of view actually, the benefit that they might find. They may have seen something around the NHS App but not really understand actually what’s through that door.
What – what actually can I access from going through that door? You know, we talk a lot about all these things, but I think for some patients actually they just need to have that one to one, maybe with a colleague or staff member, if it’s something that you’re using yourself or are familiar with yourself, it’s always really easier to translate that information to a patient and understand it from their point of view and then just being aware of maybe the good things that that you’ve heard or maybe the main features that are promoted. So it’s just being familiar with yourself – I think it really helps others.
Emma Holliday
Thanks for that, Craig. Thanks. Would you like to add anything to that?
Bex Cottey
We’re just going to build on that and just say that I think we often forget that we ourselves are patients. And so I think one of the best ways for us to be able to shout about the functions and the benefits both we can see this on both sides.
We are a patient, use it as a patient and then feedback when you maybe. Perhaps your practice that you are a patient at has not got all functions connected with the NHS App and then you meet those frustrations.
You can feed that back to your practice then the practice side benefits by saying, ‘OK, we’re actually making this quite difficult for our patients and generating more work for ourselves when actually if we actually integrated this fully and we switched on all the functions, etc, we can actually help the patient and help ourselves ease that pressure and that workload.’
So going to what Craig was saying about, you know, being familiar, I think one of the great ways is just explore it as a patient yourself, make sure you’re signed up, because how do you how do you champion something that you’re not prepared to use yourself so you know, get on board and be that guinea pig.
Emma Halliday
Yeah, brilliant Bex, I totally agree with that and we often sometimes forget because we are working on that that we are patients ourselves. When I am speaking to people about the app, they’re expecting it all to be the front door anyway because people view the NHS as all as one and they don’t see that there are loads of different systems. So that’s what they’re expecting as well.
So thank you for that brilliant first question, we’ll move on to the next question. So we do have a wealth of resources available to help both staff and patients navigate the NHS App. So we’ve got online materials, we’ve got walk through videos which Shanker referred to earlier and we’ve got some more in depth guidance as well.
So my question to you is, what resources are working well in terms of helping patients and staff make the most of the NHS App for you? What do you want to shout out about? Shanker:
Dr Shanker Vijay
OK. So I mean, what we’ve started with talking about you use it yourself and talk about the walk in videos. I’m just going to go to the next step, which is personally I think at the staff level, you could you could start at the patient level like we just said before, what we need to understand as staff is really a building block on what the patient does so when we think about resources for patients, they could also be useful resources for staff to even learn about.
So I’m a great believer in that, and it also helps us understand how to explain it in patient-friendly, simple terminology where you look at patient resources. So I do like the walk through videos that were recently because it’s very visual – we could think about language barrier, patients don’t always understand reading ‘Go to this menu option’.
Go there it’s very visual, quite quick simple video. So if you haven’t seen them, please do look at them at practice level and embrace them. But then how can you use them really powerfully to message the patients – I personally set up a messaging template which has those links to all of those walk through videos.
So rather than just telling them go and use this for your repeat prescription. t’s like, you know, we’d like you to use the NHS repeat prescription, but please watch this video on this link to see how to do that. And if staff watch those videos and patients watch those videos actually we’re being consistent about how we understand the product and it helps us communicate.
Emma Halliday
Thank you. Craig, did you want to come in?
Craig Benn
Yeah. I mean, there’s obviously a lot of resources within the NHS App toolkit, which is where a lot of these walk-through videos and guidances. I think another thing that we found, I know we’re talking about a digital thing. I think there’s still leaflets available and I think for certain cohorts and demographic the patient actually something physical is still required.
I know we’re trying to move away from paper and I’ve seen in practices sometimes to set up QR codes with links to some of these walk through videos it’s just making.
I think it’s the accessibility and awareness of actually where are these resources hold? We know that there’s an abundance of NHS resources amongst lots of different areas. I think it’s just making sure that they are accessible for patients. I think Shanker’s idea of actually setting up them templates to be able to easily be able to send that information out to patients is a fantastic idea, and that’s something that I think would be fantastic for all practices to adopt. So actually a point of contact with patients, we can send that information to them when it’s relevant.
Whether that’s being when they’re having their bloods taken, we can send them video on how they can access their test results. I think if we can create them points of engagement at point of contact we can really encourage the adoption of use to ultimately benefit the usage of the app from a patient’s perspective.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. Thank you for that.
Bex Cottey
Yeah, I would say Craig it’s absolutely key that we get at a point of contact. I think if a patient is contacting us about their test results when they’ve had the blood test and they’ve left the practice, I think we’ve had that missed opportunity.
We could then be saying you know, yes, we should say to them, here are your test results and for any future test results you can use the NHS App or did you know you can use the NHS App and give them that link and that information. You’re absolutely right, Craig to get in there. When they’re with the HCR or the phlebotomist or whoever’s taking the bloods and say I’m taking your bloods.
Now, if you want to know what your blood results are, they’ll be on the NHS App in a few days’ time. If there are any problems, the practice will be in touch with you or whatever your practice protocol is and if everything is normal because you will see that on the NHS App, it will explain to you what normal ranges are, then everything’s fine and you don’t need to contact us. It then again saves further contact, further reduces further workload for the practice, and reassures the patient that that information is there.
Emma Halliday
Yeah. And also like empowers them to actually take more ownership of their health, which is a win-win.
Bex Cottey
Absolutely. And if you’re somebody that has to have blood tests for one specific condition regularly, you’ve then got your history. You can get look back at yourself. And again, it’s that empowerment to say, you know what?
I’m going in the right direction, my blood results are getting better or I can look back and go I must have done something here because you know they’ve deteriorated and maybe that’s the point at which you get it back in contact and say, I’m not sure why this is happening. I may still be in range, but it seems to be going in the wrong direction.
Emma Halliday
Yeah, exactly, Perfectly – Shanker.
Dr Shanker Vijay
I also think like the approach we’re talking about helps with the patient not feeling overwhelmed. If you’d listed every single NHS App functionality sometimes they’re just switching off because they don’t feel at that point in time they need all of it. So yeah, I’m going to go back to that front door, right? If we go in the front door and I’m walking through and I’m actually thinking, where is the kitchen because I’m hungry, right?
So you want to know so if I just explain, OK, you have to walk through the front door to get to that kitchen, which in this case could be ‘how do I get my repeat prescription?’ And you just focus on that. The hope is as they walk into the kitchen, they discover oh yeah, there’s a lounge there, with a TV and other stuff ,so you start to explore the other functionality, but I think we have to, like we all forget half of more than half of what we get told.
So I think if we do get focused sometimes it can help with them discovering the other features, but also it’s not then overwhelming for staff. They don’t feel in a very brief interaction with the patient that they have to try and explain everything. They can explain that particular functionality for that patient in that particular time.
Emma Halliday
Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I’m loving you keep bringing it back to that front door. I think that was going to be a theme that runs through this podcast, Bex?
Bex Cottey
I love that front door. It’s getting very well used, I hope it’s a good doorbell Shanker. The other thing that we were thinking about as well when we were thinking about this within our practice was also the fact that like you said, it’s about familiarity. If it’s a front door, if it’s a house that we regularly go to, we know where we’re going. You’re absolutely right, Shanker.
Say I’m going to go to the kitchen because I’m hungry. But for patients, we can then say I can see that you’ve been using this, you know facility, because you know, did you know you can also do and just add in those extras as and when they need it.
Emma Halliday
Thank you for that. And something that I think will help, especially at practice level is what’s coming at the back end of the year. We’re working with the service desk to create a new space which is specifically for general practice staff and it includes a searchable knowledge base. Plus a dedicated space where teams can like raise/track their tickets.
So if the idea is to make it quicker and easier for staff to get the support that they need so watch this space. But what that moves us nicely on to is the next question.
So a big part of the success of the NHS App relies on practice staff really understanding how it works and more importantly, how it can work for them. So with that in mind, I’d love to hear from you to how you get practices to understand the way the NHS App works and what approaches you have found most successful in getting people on board. Craig, would you like to go first?
Craig Benn
Yeah. So it’s kind of a what I say a 3-pronged attack. Quite a few different prong attacks when it comes to just trying to help practice staff actually understand the way it works, but also the benefits that we talked a little bit earlier around. Having yourself in the familiarity of actually using it, but also what we’ve done locally is, I say recruit, digital champions within each practice to kind of be the NHS App champion for that individual practice.
I think it’s always good if you can get someone to lead on it and then slowly progress that information and shared best practice from learning that they can get from the things like the App Ambassador programme, even the Teams channel, I think just being an NHS Ambassador, there’s a lot of information there that you can find out quite quickly, it’s kind of having that peer support and then translating it actually into your own organisational setting.
So it’s a really good way of getting practice staff on board. Also delivering it like training events as well or we call them target events in our region where the practice is closed or maybe a Wednesday afternoon deliver a session actually just again maybe going into some of that finer detail, maybe some of the more technical detail that sometimes we talk about the peripherals and the features, but actually how does this translate into maybe benefits for the practice as well as benefits for the patient and just really get that really core understanding of both sides I think is really important to getting people on board and getting enthusiasm about it.
So that’s kind of one of the ways that we’ve done it locally.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. And before I bring anyone else in, I just want to ask how are you recruiting these digital leads then? How – what are you saying to bring them in?
Craig Benn
I think part of it is engaging on a practice level and bringing it in as part of a digital, almost a digital role in itself, not just looking necessarily just at the NHS App and championing that, but other areas as well like online consultation tools and looking at ways that these new systems can be used to the best of their ability.
I think the good thing about that is that the NHS App integrates with a lot of online consultation platforms, so them 2 kind of go hand in hand. It feels like they do, especially in our area and with a lot more practices adopting like a total triage model as well, I think it’s even more relevant.
So it’s kind of engaging practices you know, putting whenever you’re wanting to people to get involved, it’s kind of putting it out there and hoping that you’ll get people jump forward. And I think actually there’s a lot of people within practice that we’ve seen that really do want to take on that responsibility
So, you know, we’ve been really fortunate that we’ve had about 35 practices come forward within the last 4 or 5 weeks. So we’re already doing individual training sessions with them, so they can also deliver things within their practice and really champion it themselves. So it’s always hard to get that that uptake. But I think actually give it a go I think you’d be surprised actually how many people want to get involved.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. Thank you for that share. Bex would you like to come in?
Bex Cottey
Yeah, again, build on what Craig’s been saying as well and to say that when you’re asking staff to be involved, a lot of the time training time is very difficult time to find within practice.
We’re so busy with that constant flow of patients coming in and I know we have times when the practice is closed for training and, you know, so easily is that taken up by something mandated. So finding that, having that one champion – one person to invest that time and then trickle down information and then you have a go-to person.
Other people are saying it’s OK. I have this basic knowledge, but I know if I’ve got questions I’ve got someone to go to and that person then has the NHS App Support network behind them to.say I still don’t know the answer to this as ambassador, but I know where to find the information and to carry on that way.
I think one of the things that we would also encourage within practices Is to say to them.
remember when you are providing information for the app, i.e. through your clinical system, whether that’s EMIS, SystemOne or whichever one it is, that the information that goes from there to the patient is going to be viewed by somebody who is not medical or working within the NHS or have an understanding of how clinicians work even.
So making sure that the information we are now putting into that clinical system is very patient focused, is a really good way of framing -reframing – the way people think about the information that we provide.
And we’re a training practice within our practice and sometimes explaining that to the training doctors, the doctors that come through the registrars, they are the ones that we’re saying, just think about how this is, and how what language you’re using and who’s reading it, and it makes them think very carefully about how they record their information.
And it helps them as well because it takes the pressure off them having to know technical, particularly technical things, because they’re actually explaining it in a layman’s terms.
Emma Halliday
Yeah brilliant, thank you. Shanker, we’ll move on to you before we move on to the next question.
Dr Shanker Vijay
OK, it sounds like you really organised up north! London I view it as the total chaos approach, which is, you know, you may not have the resources or time to do anything in the structure and it is all those random moments, whether it’s you’re walking through the practice, you see a poster that’s completely wrong and you have to rip it down and think do I put something up there an NHS-type thing or you overhear a receptionist saying something to the patient – go oh no, do you know we can do it differently, they could have done it that way.
And so those random opportunities and yes, it may not be structured, may not filter throughout the whole practice, but maybe still makes some difference because like what Bex and Craig, sort of said we can all be very time poor to roll out training.
So, the biggest barriers are sometimes the staff don’t have time for the training, and I think the one thing to emphasise is that mindset. What is really going on in the mind? We all feel overstretched with workload. So can we promote a feature where we explain to staff this could reduce our workload if we give this time? And I think that’s the that’s the thing that maybe could help them embrace some of that learning.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. Thank you everyone for that.
Bex Cottey
Can I just jump in and add something?
Emma Halliday
You can indeed.
Bex Cottey
It was just it was a thought that I had that it just reminded me of something that I heard very recently at a conference. And that’s again about when a patient – I heard that studies show that when a patient’s in a consultation with a GP, they will only be able to retain 10 to 20% of what is told or explained to them or talked about within that when they leave the room.
So being able to go back into the NHS App and see the notes and the key points that were raised in that and their clinical care plan and their clinical decisions and possible diagnosis and ‘what tablets I’m going to take and how often I’m going to take them?’.
It means that they have that information to take away.
They’re not walking out of there and going’ Ah, what was I meant to be taking? How often am I taking them? How do I get back in touch if I’ve got questions? It’s written down and again the clinician should then be mindful of writing it down in a way that the patient understands. Got lots of technical abbreviations that the patient’s going ‘What does that mean and they’ve written that about me and I’m not sure about it.’
Again, it gets people to think about both sides of that of that that front door, whether you’re welcoming somebody in or whether you’re, whether you’re the person going through the door.
Emma Halliday
Yeah, I totally agree. And I don’t think that just sticks with when you’re in an appointment with the GP because I’m just in normal conversations. I forget most of it.
Brilliant. OK. So we are going to head in a different direction now as much as I champion and believe in the NHS App and as you three do as well from this conversation, I think it’s fair to say that it is not without its challenges, it’s a continuously evolving product and with that, and working in such a complex, often stretched system, it’s no surprises that there were barriers, both technical and behavioural.
So my question is, what are the main challenges or barriers that you’re seeing in your area, with regards to the NHS App and how are you working through them within your role and Shanker, is it the barrier with the door?
Dr Shanker Vijay
Yes, the door would go back to the door, OK, Emma, you ready for this? We’ll be really open here right, ‘cause this podcast is about being open and honest.
Emma Halliday
Yes. It is being open and honest.
Dr Shanker Vijay
So I think I think some of the challenges is like that staff experience about – sometimes there’s different languages, the NHS App talks about one language, about linkage codes and how to get people in and then we were talking another language and the patient goes in the loop – you know go to NHS App support team, go to practice and everyone gets frustrated.
So let’s be open, that has definitely been an issue, but there’s a positive spin to it. I definitely have seen improvement recently.
So I want to mention troubleshooting guides that people may not be aware of there to listen to – if you haven’t heard of it, seen it, do look at it.
It helps resolve some of those issues. I think those walk-through videos, the support resources have improved, but I think that that thing, that thing about both understanding the issues and what the solutions are is a key barrier.
And then I’ll always mention about time – time is our biggest limitation.
Emma Halliday
Yeah. Brilliant thank you for that. And for everyone who’s listening we will put a link to the resources – which is the troubleshooting guide, the walk-through videos that we’ve talked about and every other resource that we’ve talked about in the show notes. Bex – barriers/issues?
Bex Cottey
Again, talking about language, but in a very like different way – we’re talking about people whose English is not their first language. So being able to access NHS App facilities for people who don’t speak English as the first language, mainly translator services.
It can be a bit of a hindrance trying to navigate that initially and again if it’s something that you can invest in within a practice, somebody that perhaps you have on your staff that has the language skills to be able to communicate things through with them to explain how to get on that, Digital inclusivity is another buzzword, and something very important that we need to think about for our patients.
Those people that don’t have the digital access or the data, perhaps, or they’re very vulnerable because they some days have it and they can afford it and some days they can’t, and I think it’s really important for our practices to be aware of that and our practice staff to perhaps have an idea in their local area as to where they may get assistance for their patients about that, and certainly in our area Citizens Advice have been doing some incredible work with local businesses in order to get refurbished hardware so that they can give that away to people who are particularly vulnerable and also in terms of making sure that you have access to data or making sure that you even just, you’re getting the right benefits so that you can fund it yourself.
You know, it’s those fundamental support systems that we need to be aware of that wrap around this whole digital world that we live in.
Emma Halliday
Yeah, I totally agree with that. And we have in our team been working closely with libraries recently- training librarians up into understanding that there are people who may need that additional support or may need the Wi-Fi and actually to use the devices as well.
So, they’ve got their computers that are being used, so that has been something that has gone well and that we will continue to work with as well as expanding out and working with other community groups as well. Craig:
Craig Benn
Yeah, just adding to what you’ve just said really. I think it’s just again time is the biggest, one of the biggest challenges trying to get some initiatives up and running, can be tricky, require resource. What we’ve tried to do in our area is use like acid- based resources.
So we set up a volunteering group that actually deliver sessions within local libraries every month, last week of every month, and it means that there’s a place where patients can go to get one-to-one support, somebody actually to spend time helping them verify themselves, get onto the app and use some of the features.
Sometimes it’s just usage, not just necessarily actually downloading it and getting on, but also there’s a lot of VCSE organisations that can support with that a bit like you mentioned, with the work with local libraries. I know this other organisations that are delivering that support, just being aware, I think it’s making sure that staff and colleagues are aware of them as well, so that actually even in the scenario where they may feel that they can’t help, but because the time constraints and we’ve maybe all been in a position where we really want to, naturally I think just as NHS workers, we always want to help and we always help each other.
Actually if you put in a position where you feel that you can’t give that dedicated time, It’s obviously not a nice feeling.
So actually being aware of actually where you can redirect a patient where they can receive that support I think is really important, whether that be in a library, using a volunteering group that’s been set up to support them or other organisations that are supporting with that, and we want to utilise as many resources that are available that are offering these services, but ultimately that involves some collaboration with them to make sure that everybody is aware of them don’t want to compare it to triaging, but it’s trying to make sure if we are redirecting patients, that they’re going to the right place.
So any additional support that we can provide them is obviously going to be a beneficial thing.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. That sounds great. And I think because I’m so local, I need to check that voluntary session out. So I’ll be in touch with about that Craig. Bex – before we move on to our final question?
Bex Cottey
OK. So just wanted to actually have a shout out to our secondary care colleagues because when we’re talking about the functionality of this, I think we can’t just see that the patient is using this for primary care services.
And I would be encouraging other services to be proactive in saying how can we be involved in the information that we put on there as well. So perhaps local pharmacies as they as they are providing so much more for our patients at primary care level now as well.
But just to reach out and say, you know ‘what can you proactively do to make sure that the patients are getting their full care and health picture within the NHS App?’
So I was recently as a patient interacting with screening services at our secondary care and at the end of it, they said still said, well, you’ll get your results in the post and it wasn’t an option to get them by the NHS App, even though it’s going to be quite a black and white result. So you know, being able to say, just push back and just say, ‘OK, how can the service that I work in or the department that I work in within secondary care, how can we make sure that we are providing patients with that and it’s going to save the NHS money in the long run, think of all that postage costs you’ll save.’
Emma Halliday
Totally agree there, Shanker would you like to come in?
Dr Shanker Vijay
OK, Bex has shouted out secondary care and she also shouted out health inequalities with the language thing – so I’m going to shout out libraries and digital inclusion. So literally like last week, I emailed – the NHS app is trying to do some promotion work around libraries – but I emailed a local library saying ‘Do you know anything about this and they go no. Could you display this poster and they go yes.
So they’re just doing it throughout the whole borough. So you know, reach out to libraries and that can also help with digital exclusion with, you know, and people using the computers in the library. So another thing to think about.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. And some great suggestions there so we’re onto our final question. So as I mentioned before, the app is constantly evolving.
There’s a lot coming this financial year and you’ll be able to see the full road map online, which will put a link in the show notes as well, but I’ll just highlight a few things that have been worked on over in the pipeline and then I want to throw it back to the panel to see what they’re most excited about on the road map, and if there’s anything that I haven’t mentioned for them to mention.
So in prescriptions, people will soon be able to set reminders to order their repeat prescriptions, which is a request that has come constantly from patients being able to track the status of the prescription is going to be constantly rolling out.
We’re on that, I think like 35% now, but it’s going to be rolling out further and getting a notification of when it’s ready to collect and the tracking feature will also be available for linked accounts. So that’s that proxy user as well.
In records access, we’re adding more visualisation with regards to the test results, so it’ll be shown in graph. So Bex, you mentioned before about people looking at their results and this will help them to spot trends over time.
For appointments we’re onboarding more providers so patients can see and manage more of their care across different settings, including secondary care which was mentioned and also improving how appointment bookings work with the online consultation journey.
Integration wise, we’re linking with more third party suppliers and adding a feature to let users update their home address through the app because at the moment they can do their e-mail address and phone number, but there has been a request for the home address as well, so that is something that will be worked on and in messaging there’s a lot of focus on unifying the message hub so patients will have that single inbox.
So then they can actually manage it all from one inbox and be able to flag and filter the messages and later on remove.
And they were working on push notifications and having more people having their notifications enabled so they know that they’ve got a message in the app and also looking at the different types of messages that are sent via the app
So bringing it back to the panel for the final question, from what you you’re hearing on the ground, what do you think people will find most helpful or what are you finding exciting on the road map or is there something that I haven’t mentioned that is worth mentioning? So, Bex over to you.
Bex Cottey
Oh, I’m so excited to hear that the progressions are going to take part around prescriptions because I always think from a non-doctor perspective there’s lots of things that are going to help the doctor in the long run, but also the other staff within that do a lot of the background and back office work within practice, and it’s that communication, isn’t it? ‘I put in my repeat prescription request, but where? Where is it? Where is it in the progress? How long have I got left to wait?’ and having that reminder is hugely important.
We now know we have identified people within our society who are neurodivergent and may find it much more difficult to organise their time and their thoughts and the tasks that they need to do on a daily basis.
Having those reminders digitally is something that a lot of them rely on as an assistance, I mean we all have busy lives and have to remember things, and some of us are better at it than others. But in particular, for those people that have very chaotic lives, through no fault of their own, I think having those reminders is great.
And then being able to track it through, it would save a lot of footfall and our practice in particular, we share a building with our local pharmacy and you see patients they come to our desk and then they walk to the pharmacy in the same building and then they come back again and they’ve got a query and then and you’re thinking all that to-ing and froing and all they could do from home is just have a look. Is it ready at the pharmacy to pick up?
So all I need to know is when am I getting my meds and if they can then identify a problem in that flow, if there, if there is one, and then contact the right people – is it the pharmacy I need to contact or is it the GP practice I need to contact? So yeah, hugely excited about that. Thank you.
Emma Halliday
Brilliant. I can hear that in your voice. And yeah, thank you very much, Bex. Shanker:
Dr Shanker Vijay
Yeah, I’m going to echo I love the prescription tracking, so all the points Bex said.
But just going to go even further. So if we think this through. Patients may use other apps like different apps to NHS App to repeat prescription. This is now a functionality which isn’t in those other apps and can be another reason they decide to switch to the NHS App, but it isn’t just about general practice.
We think about it it’s so difficult for comms to cascade down – people don’t realise functionality has changed.
It’s also about community pharmacies they probably don’t realise a lot of them that this has come in, it’s coming. So sometimes those conversation with your local pharmacies and they usually don’t promote the NHS App that much because they didn’t see as much advantage sometimes as the other apps that could be used. But this bit could really be a game changer for them.
So it’s a really great way to have a conversation with your local community pharmacy Saying this could reduce their workload too. Not, you know, having queries from patients about ‘is it ready for collection?’. So I think this is where we can unite as a clear comms strategy to our patients.
Emma Halliday
Thank you, Shanker, and Craig?
Craig Benn
I’m really excited about the development of proxy access and how that could be the actual process of requesting proxy access is going to be improved through the app. Done a lot of work recently with carers who sometimes have great access themselves as a carer to their own, but actually for the person that they’re caring for, they might not be aware of proxy access. Hopefully I think the NHS App team are planning some promo around that particular feature.
But I think personally, sometimes I think it’s a feature that sometimes is overlooked a little bit or not mentioned as much just from being out and about speaking to patients. Some of them are always aware that you could either do that, or you can even link your profiles. So I think any exposure around that will be really beneficial and actually really make the differences.
I think we’ve all got stories of patients that we’ve spoken to and I spoke to a patient the other day and they care for someone that’s housebound and at the moment they’re having to arrange cover just to get out to the practice or contact the practice just to be able to do some simple things that hopefully with proxy access, they’ll actually be able to do something.
Actually, that feature can really make tangible differences in people’s lives. We need to shout about it a bit more, whether it’s for grandparents or for children. I think there’s loads of elements where link profiles and proxy access can be really beneficial to patients, and I think again, a little bit like we spoke about earlier, it’s about letting patients know when it’s relevant at relevant points of contact.
Really want to echo what Shanker said earlier around let’s not try and overload patients with every single feature necessarily that they might utilise on the app. Actually ones that are relevant to them and I think ultimately with anything that you can encourage usage a lot better if it’s relevant to actually someone’s situation and what they’re going to benefit from it at the time.
So anything we can do around that, I’m really excited about because I know just from working with patients that it’ll be – it’ll make a massive difference to them.
Emma Halliday
Yeah, brilliant. And thank you for that, Craig.
With proxy access, what we mean by that is patients being able to access medical services for a child or someone else that they care for. So this is known as linked profiles, proxy access or switching accounts and this can be done in the NHS App.
And yes, we’ve got a proxy team working at the moment on that in a pilot in London and that will be opened up so people will be able to apply for it online. But at the moment shout out to proxy – if 2 patients are at the same practice, they can get proxy access in the NHS App – just to speak to the practice.
So honestly I could talk about the NHS App all day. I can’t believe how quickly this session has gone, but sadly it’s time to wrap up.
So I’d like to firstly thank you, our listeners, thank you for spending your time with us today.
A huge thank you to our brilliant panel: Craig Benn, Bex Cottey and Dr. Shanker Vijay, and of course a big thank you to the team behind the Transforming Primary Care podcast for organising the session and giving me the opportunity to host this episode.
It’s been such a pleasure to be part of this conversation, and I hope it’s left you with ideas, insights and maybe even some inspiration about what the NHS App can offer. Until next time, thank you and take care.