Londoners can now create Universal Care Plan through NHS App
- 17 July 2026
- All London GP patients can now create and edit their Universal Care Plan(UCP) through the NHS App
- The update gives patients greater visibility of their care records and supports personalised care
- Better and OneLondon are planning further enhancements, including proxy access and NHS Notify integration
All patients registered with a London GP practice can now create their Universal Care Plan (UCP) through the NHS App.
The UCP is a shared digital record that allows patients to record their care preferences, wishes and other information that can be accessed by authorised health and care professionals.
Londoners have been able to view their UCP via the NHS App and login service since January 2024.
Since 13 May 2026, millions of Londoners have had “direct control of their health and care wishes and preferences for the first time, significantly improving patient choice and accelerating personalised care across all of London,” according to OneLondon.
An update for the app, powered by Better, which provides digital health record and care planning software to the NHS, and in partnership with OneLondon, adds additional clinical sections so patients can see what clinicians are writing about their health.
The addition aims to improve transparency by allowing patients to view more of the clinical information recorded about them and become more involved in their care.
Tomas Ince, senior clinical transformation manager at OneLondon, said: “It’s a huge milestone that every person registered with a London GP practice now has the opportunity to create and edit a care plan.
“The Universal Care Plan has been co-designed with patients and clinicians, capturing important information that matters most, often including very complex personal needs.
“It opens up that more in-depth personalised picture of a patient, beyond just a list of diagnoses.”
Better said the update will reduce the need for patients to repeat their health information because authorised health and care professionals can access the care plan.
Patients can also update their non-clinical information to reduce the administrative burden on health and care professionals and support better coordination across services.
Better said the changes could help reduce unnecessary hospital admissions, improve coordination between services and support the ambitions of the 10 year health plan.
Ian Bennett, senior product specialist at Better, said: “Enabling patients to directly write their own Universal Care Plans in the NHS App accelerates the path towards a more personalised health and care system.
“The Universal Care Plan is about ensuring that patients’ wishes and preferences are accessible to the right clinicians at the right time. We’re proud to have delivered a solution that gives patients agency and a voice across all of London.”
The UCP is compliant with the NHS App design system and is compatible with screen readers and keyboard navigation.
It currently supports more than 97,000 live care plans, which are viewed around 30,000 times each month.
Better and OneLondon plan to introduce proxy access for linked users, such as parents and carers, alongside integration with NHS Notify and new features including mental health crisis management, catheter care and complex geriatric assessments.
