Prescriptions, appointments, messages and test results delivered straight to my phone. Sometimes rather faster than I’d like.

For years, The Reluctant Patient’s preferred method of accessing his medical records was not to have any.

Then I discovered the NHS App.

Now I can watch things go wrong from my phone.

I’d decided to take more of an interest in my health and suspected I’d be seeing a lot more doctors and having rather more tests.

I was curious about what the NHS App would actually give me access to.

Maybe I’d even get a heads-up on the blood tests they were going to do.

It turns out the NHS App shows quite a lot and provides some genuinely useful functionality.

But there’s a slight complication.

It’s not really just one system

The NHS App gives the impression of being one centralised application, but behind it are lots of different NHS organisations and computer systems.

What you can actually see and do can therefore depend on your GP surgery, hospital and the systems they use. The NHS itself acknowledges that some functionality varies between providers.

I’ve seen this myself.

My hospital information is provided through Patients Know Best (PKB), which has its own website. The NHS App can take me into PKB and authenticate me, so from my perspective it feels reasonably integrated even though I’ve actually moved into another service.

So your NHS App may not look exactly like mine.

With that warning out of the way, let’s see what mine currently does.

Prescriptions

There’s quite a lot here.

I can request repeat prescriptions, see prescription information and nominate the pharmacy where I want prescriptions sent electronically. Some patients can also track the progress of prescriptions.

This is considerably more convenient than the old process:

Go to surgery.

Request prescription.

Wait.

Go back.

Collect green prescription slip.

Take slip to pharmacy.

Discover they haven’t got something.

Wait again.

Go back to pharmacy.

The NHS App removes quite a lot of that exercise.

It also shows my prescription history, although mine appears slightly incomplete.

There is also an option for obtaining an emergency prescription, although this takes you out to a website.

Of all the features in the App, prescriptions may be one of the least exciting.

They’re also one of the most genuinely useful.

Appointments

This is split between GP surgery and hospital.

My surgery doesn’t appear to offer me much appointment management through the App, although GP practices can configure which appointment functions they make available.

Hospital is another matter.

I’ve seen hospital appointments, referrals and waiting-list information appear there.

As of April 2026, every acute NHS trust in England is connected for referrals and appointment information, although not every appointment is necessarily visible and the ability to change or cancel appointments varies.

For somebody who has suddenly acquired rather more appointments than he used to have, having them in one place is useful.

Test Results

Ah.

This is where the fun starts.

My GP and local hospital information ultimately gives me access to a lot of test results, with hospital results coming through Patients Know Best.

And this is a really useful facility if you want to scare yourself silly.

I’ve had a blood test in the morning and seen some results that afternoon.

I’ve had results appear before I’ve spoken to the doctor about them.

The NHS explicitly warns that this can happen.

So you can find yourself looking at:

OUT OF RANGE

Excellent.

What does that mean?

Is it slightly out?

Very out?

Important?

Completely unsurprising?

Related to another result?

Should I start writing a will?

This is one of the reasons I’ve started writing the Medical Notes.

Not everything arrives at once

Blood-test results can also trickle in.

Some appear quickly.

Some appear the following day.

Others can take longer.

Unfortunately, in my experience I tend to get a notification when the first results arrive, but not necessarily another notification every time another result is added.

So after a blood test I have developed the entirely healthy habit of repeatedly checking the App to see whether the laboratory has found anything else wrong with me.

And some things are deliberately delayed

I’ve also encountered reports that don’t become visible immediately.

For example, some imaging reports in systems using PKB can be delayed before release to the patient. The precise arrangements depend on the NHS organisation; one current NHS trust implementation releases radiology reports through PKB after 35 days.

That’s an important distinction from saying that the NHS App universally embargoes serious results for four weeks.

In my experience I’ve encountered roughly four-week delays, but that’s a feature of how particular results/providers release information — not a rule that applies to everything in the NHS App.

And a delayed result certainly doesn’t mean:

BAD NEWS.

It means you haven’t been given access to it yet.

Vaccinations

I haven’t had much reason to use this section.

It does, however, show my COVID vaccinations, including which vaccine I received.

Depending on the information available from your GP systems, other vaccination records can appear here too.

Useful.

Not terribly exciting.

Which is probably exactly what you want from a vaccination record.

Health Conditions

This is another area where what you see can depend on the information available from your GP record.

Mine includes things such as allergies.

The wider NHS App can expose information from GP health records including medicines, allergies, test results and appointment notes.

This is one of those sections I suspect I’ll find more interesting as The Reluctant Patient reluctantly accumulates more medicine.

Documents

Mine isn’t particularly exciting.

I get information and health material supplied through the services I’m using.

Other patients may see more: NHS England says documents available through connected services can include things such as hospital information and discharge summaries.

And this leads nicely to one of my complaints.

More on that shortly.

NHS Information and Support

Lots of links to NHS information about medical conditions and health.

Useful if you’ve just found something alarming elsewhere in the App and would like to frighten yourself using an authoritative source.

Messages

This is much more useful.

I’ve received messages from both my GP surgery and hospital services.

Some of my hospital messaging is provided through Patients Know Best.

It’s considerably faster than waiting for a letter to arrive through the post.

The NHS App’s 2026 redesign actually makes Messages one of its three main areas alongside Home and Profile, which gives some indication of how central digital communication is becoming.

Profile

The Profile area contains personal details and account-related functionality.

Among other things, the NHS App now supports registering with a new GP surgery, and the wider account functionality includes managing your personal information and, where applicable, health services for other people.

Hopefully I won’t need to change GP again for a while.

I’ve only just started giving the current one things to do.

Bugs — or features?

Overall, I like the NHS App.

But I’ve accumulated a couple of irritations.

Where are the rest of my results?

As mentioned earlier, blood-test results don’t necessarily arrive together.

I might receive a notification about the first batch and then find further results appearing later without another obvious notification.

So I end up checking again.

And again.

And perhaps once more before bed.

This may say as much about the patient as the App.

But I’d still like the option to be notified when new results are added to an existing set.

Give me the bloody PDF

Letters and reports are frequently supplied as PDF files.

I’ve encountered both download and save options while using the services accessible through the App.

And I’ve also encountered PDFs that stubbornly refuse to be downloaded or saved.

This becomes irritating when you’re trying to read a lengthy medical report through a small window on a phone.

Yes, I can zoom in.

Then scroll sideways.

Then down.

Then sideways.

Then forget which line I was reading.

I’d quite like the PDF. Which I could probably get by logging into the NHS services with a web browser.

One App, several systems

This isn’t necessarily a bug, but it’s probably the biggest thing to understand about the NHS App.

It can feel like one application while actually providing access to services operated by different organisations and technology providers.

That explains why something can work beautifully in one section and rather differently in another.

It also means my review isn’t necessarily a description of what you’ll see.

Your GP surgery and hospital may provide different facilities.

The slightly dangerous bit

There’s one thing I think deserves saying separately.

Access to your own medical information is a good thing.

I’m firmly in favour of it.

But access to medical information and understanding medical information aren’t the same thing.

A laboratory result can appear on your phone before you’ve had a conversation with somebody who knows what it means.

The NHS itself acknowledges this possibility and advises patients to discuss results they’re concerned about with their GP.

I’ve now experienced enough blood tests to know that:

Out of range

doesn’t automatically translate to:

Panic.

But when you’ve only just started taking an interest in your health, seeing unexpected results appear on your phone can be alarming.

It can also be enormously useful.

That’s the trade-off.

So, do I recommend the NHS App?

Yes.

Despite my complaints, this is one piece of health technology The Reluctant Patient genuinely recommends.

Requesting repeat prescriptions is easier.

Hospital appointments and referrals are easier to keep track of.

Messages arrive faster.

My health information is much more accessible.

And test results can appear remarkably quickly — sometimes before I’ve spoken to the person who actually knows what they mean.

That last feature is simultaneously one of the best and most terrifying things about it.

For somebody who spent years trying not to interact with healthcare at all, I’ve gone rather rapidly from:

I don’t want to know.

to:

Why hasn’t that blood result appeared yet?

Progress, apparently.

From the Case Files

Further Information

NHS App help and information – NHS