Scotland’s Digital Front Door app launch ‘may be underwhelming’
- 27 June 2025
- Scotland's 'Digital Front Door' app will initially launch only to dermatology patients in Lanarkshire
- The Scottish government has been working on the app, which is planned to include access to both health and social care data and services, since 2022
- An internal review carried out by the government in March 2025 found that there were "still significant difficulties" with the app's delivery
Scotland’s version of the NHS App will only be available to dermatology patients in one area initially, the government has confirmed.
John Swinney, first minister, announced in January 2025 that the country’s ‘Digital Front Door’ platform would launch by the end of year.
The Scottish government has been working on the app, which is planned to include access to both health and social care data and services, since 2022.
However an internal review carried out by the Scottish government in March 2025 found that there were “still significant difficulties” with the app’s delivery, The Times reported.
As a result, the review said that the initial launch will cover a “small set of services for one specialty” focusing on dermatology patients in Lanarkshire, adding that there is “a risk that the initial offering may be underwhelming”.
A spokesperson for the Scottish government told Digital Health News: “The health and social care app is on course to launch initially in Lanarkshire in 2025.
“Like any digital service, good practice means the initial version will be tested thoroughly prior to wider rollout.
“This will begin with a limited number of services, which will then be extended and expanded across Scotland.”
Sandesh Gulhane, health spokesperson for the Scottish Conservative party, said: “This internal review confirms the chaos, delays and mind-boggling expense caused by the SNP’s mismanagement of Scotland’s NHS.
“Suffering patients and dedicated NHS staff deserve better than this SNP government whose failures are taking away valuable millions from frontline healthcare.”
The Scottish government said in October 2024 that its plan for a Digital Front Door platform “goes beyond” the NHS App because it will include access to both health and social care data and services.
It is aimed to enable people to access, self-manage, and contribute to their own health and care information online, providing digital notifications, access to personal health information and options for patients to interact directly with health and social care services.
In a speech on improving public services and NHS renewal, at the National Robotarium in Edinburgh on 27 January 2025, Swinney said: “As a much-needed addition to improve patients’ interaction with the NHS, there will be a Scottish health and social care app.
“This Digital Front Door will begin rollout from the end of this year, starting in Lanarkshire, and, over time, it will become an ever more central, ever more important access and management point for care in Scotland.”
Swinney’s speech alluded to a digital support model for dermatology and the management of long-term conditions, which would build on “the already successful model of digital support for mental health – a service that saw 74,000 referrals in 2023-24”.
Scotland’s personalised digital health and care service draws together three major programmes – the Digital Front Door, the National Digital Platform, and the Integrated Social Care and Health Record, that are set out in Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy and its supporting Delivery Plan 2024-25.
