Digital Health News readers vote in favour of exposing NHS App APIs

Almost 90% of Digital Health News readers have said they support the CEO of NHSX’s suggestion that the APIs of the NHS App should be opened up for innovators to build on.

Matthew Gould said in a recent blog post that he wanted to “expose the APIs” of the NHS app, adding he wanted to keep the app “thin” so others could come up “with brilliant features on top”.

These comments were well received and welcomed by some, though others expressed concern.

Digital Health News ran a poll to ask readers whether they think this approach by Gould is the right decision, and the results are in.

Of the 178 people who voted, 159 (89%) said they did think it was the right decision while the remaining 11% did not.

The topic of Gould’s blog was brought up at an event held by techUK on 10 June.

q: Is the NHS App being scaled back? @matthewsgould : We're not closing the app or scaling back what's already there. But we want to avoid competing with the market or crowding out innovation by trying to do everything ourselves. #healthtechuk

— Transforming health and care (@NHSTransform) June 10, 2019

Gould, who was a speaker at the event which focused on NHSX, said the purpose of scaling back the NHS App would prevent the NHS from “competing with the market or crowding out innovation by trying to do everything ourselves”.

He added that this approach would be a “test case” in “exercising restraint”.