Patients to receive reminders and test results through NHS App first

Patients in England will receive appointment reminders, screening invitations and test results through the NHS App first, as part of a £50 million upgrade.

A press release, published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on 7 June 2025, said that the app will become the primary method of communication between the health system and patients, avoiding the need for at least 50 million letters to go through the postal system.

Wes Streeting, health secretary, said: “People are living increasingly busy lives and want to access information about their health at the touch of a button, rather than having to wait weeks for letters that often arrive too late.

“This government is bringing our analogue health service into the digital age, so that being a patient in the NHS is as convenient as online banking or ordering a takeaway.

“The NHS still spends hundreds of millions of pounds on stamps, printing, and envelopes.

“By modernising the health service, we can free up huge amounts of funding to reinvest in the frontline.”

DHSC expects that around 270 million messages will be sent through the NHS App in 2025 an increase of 70 million on the last financial year, saving an estimated £200m across the system over the next three years.

According to research by the Taxpayer’s Alliance, reported by The Telegraph, the NHS spent at least £102 million sending letters by post in 2024, an increase of 12.5% on the year before.

Dr Vin Diwakar, clinical transformation director at NHS England, said: “More than 11 million of us now log into the NHS App every month to manage our healthcare, whether ordering a repeat prescription or seeking advice on a medical condition.

“We’re supporting the switch from analogue to digital by harnessing the power of digital communication channels so that millions more patients can receive important messages about their health direct to their smartphones – all you need to do is enable notifications in the NHS App to see and open messages.

“The NHS App is already empowering patients by giving them more information and now by increasingly becoming a world-class way of communicating – which will save millions of pounds and free up resources for patient care.

“I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t got the app on their smartphone to download it now.”

DHSC said that where app messaging is not available, communications will be sent via SMS and then by letter as a last resort to allow people without access to smartphones and elderly patients to be able to receive messages through traditional routes.

People without smartphone access are expected to benefit from phone lines being freed up when many other patients can get the information that they need digitally.

Work is also underway to improve user experience in the NHS App by allowing users to add appointments to the calendar on their phones and request help from their GP surgery.  It will also seek to drive increased usage through faster log in methods, such as Face ID.

In May 2025, a prescription tracking feature was rolled out in the NHS App.