Messages despatched to tens of millions of sufferers by way of the NHS App have saved the NHS £1.1 million on the price of beforehand sending the knowledge by way of textual content message within the final 12 months.
Throughout 2023/24, roughly 22.5 million messages had been despatched by means of the NHS App, which might have beforehand been despatched as a textual content message or letter. The typical price of sending a textual content message is round 5p, representing a saving of a minimum of £1.1 million.
Individuals who swap on notifications within the NHS App have their messages routinely despatched by means of the app, which avoids the price of sending a textual content message, is safer, and places all affected person NHS messages in a single place.
Dr Vin Diwakar, nationwide transformation director at NHS England, stated: “After we speak about the advantages of the NHS App, we normally give attention to affected person comfort, or the admin time saved for frontline workers – however the NHS App can be saving the NHS important quantities of cash on textual content messages and postal stamps, and these financial savings will solely get bigger as extra options are added to the app sooner or later.
“By encouraging extra individuals to make use of the NHS App, with notifications switched on, we will actually begin to cut back the estimated £450 million per 12 months that’s at present spent on speaking with sufferers.”
The NHS App now has greater than 34 million registered customers, which is round three quarters of the grownup inhabitants in England. Greater than 2.7 million individuals have already used a brand new prescription function launched in January, permitting sufferers in England to see when their prescriptions have been issued and look at their prescribed remedy.
The messaging providers obtainable within the NHS App rely on a affected person’s GP surgical procedure or healthcare supplier, however many customers can now:
view messages from their NHS healthcare providers (by means of the NHS App messaging service)view responses from their GP observe or comply with up on issues like take a look at outcomes (generally referred to as a web-based session)view messages to their healthcare supplier (corresponding to specialist docs at a hospital)
New options are being added to the NHS App often, because the NHS encourages extra individuals to make use of the app of their on a regular basis lives.
These options allow sufferers to view their GP well being report, order repeat prescriptions, view or handle hospital appointments, nominate their most well-liked pharmacy, discover native NHS providers and get well being recommendation by way of 111 on-line.
Extra particulars on methods to register with the NHS App can be found at www.nhs.uk/nhs-app.