The Government is committed to delivering digital services that are accessible to all patients and has established a national change programme to ensure the NHS App is accessible to the whole population by 2028, including those who do not routinely use smartphones.

As part of its 10-Year Health Plan, the Government has tasked National Health Service integrated care boards and providers with mitigating any digital exclusion through operational guidance, proactively offering NHS App communications while maintaining high quality non-digital options such as letters, phone, and face to face contact.

Furthermore, the NHS App is co-designed and tested with people from deprived and inclusion groups, including blind and visually impaired users, as well as people with low digital confidence.

Practical support is being expanded through public libraries, where NHS App guidance and staff support are provided, alongside training for frontline NHS staff and an NHS App Ambassadors programme that runs sessions in general practices, libraries, and community centres across England. Of course, the NHS App is also accessible through the NHS website.

The Government is committed to enabling patients to access digital health and care services to manage their health. As part of its work to support self-referral services for National Health Service patients in the musculoskeletal community, the Government is assessing how to develop these services for other communities, including those of audiologists. Work is expected to take place this financial year and will consider whether the NHS App is the best mechanism for self-referral.

NHS England is in the early stages of exploring how the use of artificial intelligence (AI) can improve patient access to services through the NHS App, including patients with complex needs. We are currently piloting AI triage in the NHS App in one area and plan to extend to three more areas by the end of the 2026/27 financial year to inform best approach.

Work is also underway to define an approach to enable patients with long term conditions to co-manage their care with clinical teams via the NHS App. Priority use cases will be agreed in the first half of the next financial year to take forward into delivery.

The Government is fully committed to the 10-Year Health Plan ambition that 95% of people with complex needs will have an agreed care plan by 2027, and the work required to deliver this commitment is in active development.

This includes how emerging technologies, including enhanced NHS App functionality, can support people with complex needs to be active participants in their own care. Through the Transforming People and Patient Facing Services programme, we are exploring how care plans can be made visible to patients via the NHS App. This work is currently in the discovery phase, examining priority use cases and the safest and most effective ways to present care plan information digitally.

We have also developed proxy access for the NHS App and are building and piloting the National Proxy Service to make it easier for people to manage healthcare on behalf of others, including those with complex needs.

NHS England supports National Health Service trusts with software needs in many ways, including through documentation, guides, support, a developer community, application programming interfaces, and mandatory standards.

NHS England is unifying software across NHS trusts through application of interoperability and accessibility standards and national services such as NHS Notify.

NHS trusts make their own decisions regarding the adoption and deployment of software and are expected to ensure that access to the tools they employ is safe, ethical, effective, and equitable for all within their remit.

To deliver the shift from analogue to digital that is set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will create a digital front door for mental health care through the NHS App to boost access to early support and to empower people to take steps to manage their symptoms.

This has already started, with mental health appointment management now available in eight National Health Service trusts, with a further 18 trusts now funded to come online soon. Underserved groups will be able to find and access Talking Therapies through targeted messaging from next year as well.

We have also been making improvements to the self-referral pathways between NHS 111 online and NHS Talking Therapies, meaning that the 20,000 people with mental health queries who go to NHS 111 online are now better served. This is in addition to supporting people in crisis through the 111 online symptom checker that advises on what to do next.

We are also planning to move all direct-to-patient communication services to NHS Notify and use NHS App-based ‘push’ notifications as the preferred method of contact so that patients can access referral and appointment details, and share and update information with ease.

More widely, we support the adoption of digital technology across the NHS Talking Therapies pathway. NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provide assurance around Digitally Enabled Therapies with a strong evidence base, and 7% of NHS Talking Therapies treatments are delivered via these tools. More recently, NICE has provided assurance around Digital Front Doors into NHS Talking Therapies services and we are seeing rapid adoption of these tools, which use artificial intelligence and can improve the quality and accuracy of the assessment.

The NHS 10-Year Health Plan committed to improving assertive outreach care and treatment to ensure 100% national coverage in the next decade. Following the 2025/26 Planning Guidance, systems have reviewed their provision and developed local action plans to strengthen care and treatment. This has been supported by national guidance on intensive and assertive community mental health treatment which helps local areas assess and enhance their services. Recognising all the hard work and improvements systems have already made, we will continue working with regions and integrated care boards to ensure this remains a local priority.

To date, the Department has not undertaken any formal assessment or estimate on the cost or value of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to predict levels of demand in accident and emergency departments.

Decisions regarding the adoption and deployment of AI tools, including those used for demand prediction in accident and emergency settings as discussed in the article ‘Faster treatments and support for health workers as AI tackles accident and emergency bottlenecks’, are made at a local level by individual National Health Service trusts. At present, NHS trusts have autonomy to determine the use of such technologies, taking into account the needs and priorities of their respective organisation, independent of the Government. As such, we do not have a cost estimate of a national rollout, nor can we confirm the procurement processes used by those organisations.

The implementation of the AI tools discussed in the article ‘Faster treatments and support for health workers as AI tackles accident and emergency bottlenecks’ did not involve an individual procurement of third-party goods or services for the accident and emergency tool, which was developed in the Federated Data Platform. AI implementation programmes that do involve the procurement of third-party goods, services, or digital products are managed in compliance with the obligations set out in the Procurement Act 2023, and the relevant NHS contracting authorities' standing financial instructions.

We do not know how many artificial intelligence (AI) based triage or patient flow tools are in accident and emergency (A&E) departments. The A&E demand forecasting tool discussed in the 28 December 2025 press release ‘Faster treatments and support for health workers as AI tackles A&E bottlenecks’ is not a triage or patient flow tool, as it analyses anonymous, aggregate data to generate a forecast of demand on A&E in terms of daily numbers of patient arrivals at A&E and admissions three weeks in advance. It serves as one additional source of information to support local decision making in managing A&E departments.

The A&E demand forecasting tool is available via the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) to all National Health Service trusts and integrated care systems in England and is currently being used across 50 organisations. The FDP provides a single, real-time view to improve patient flow, elective recovery, operational decisions, and patient care, alongside national services supporting management, planning, and performance improvements.

Individual NHS trusts are free to make their own decisions regarding the adoption and deployment of AI tools, including those that are part of the FDP. As such, the Department does not have access to specific numbers of how many trusts are utilising AI-based triage or patient-flow tools in A&E departments.

We are not currently undertaking any work to ensure interoperability between AI triage tools and existing NHS electronic patient records. Local organisations should consider the interoperability of systems, including electronic patient records systems.

The criteria used to determine the cost-effectiveness of offering services in the NHS App is yet to be finalised, as scoping is at an early stage and will take place alongside the business planning process for the Spending Review period.

Detailed planning is still underway for the Spending Review period, which would include the continuous monitoring of all elements of the NHS App, including artificial intelligence assisted triage functionality. At this stage no estimate has been made of the resources required for the continuous monitoring of the triage functions of the NHS App specifically, but it is being included and is a key element when considering how to deliver this change.

The Department has not made an assessment or estimated the number of mental health advice chatbots and large language models.

Publicly available artificial intelligence (AI) applications that are not deployed by the National Health Service, such as ChatGPT and Character AI, are not regulated as medical technologies and may offer incorrect or harmful information. Users are strongly advised to be careful when using these technologies.

The NHS App is at the forefront of a major digital transformation and will revolutionise access to healthcare by putting patients at the centre of a modern, personalised, and data-driven service. One of the key aims is to empower individuals with greater choice, transparency, and control over their care.

The NHS App is co-designed with patients from a wide range of background and needs, with 14,000 users involved in user research in 2025 alongside 42,000 survey completions. Our research teams also have a rule of always doing rounds of research with often excluded or disadvantaged groups. This is often facilitated by partners like the Royal National Institute of Blind People and Mencap who help us to involve the appropriate people.

The NHS App is already helping people manage their health more easily, whether that’s viewing records, booking appointments, ordering prescriptions, or accessing test results. In the past year alone, the app has sent over 181 million messages, supported over 32 million vaccination invites, and offered more than 16 million vaccination appointments, many in local pharmacies. These numbers show how the app is not just supporting care but actively shifting it closer to home.

By 2030, patients will be able to manage their care remotely, contribute to their health records, and navigate the system with confidence, driving better outcomes and a more integrated, responsive National Health Service.

NHS England figures show that 81 trusts in England use National Health Service number barcodes on patient identification wrist bands. This total includes a mix of trusts compliant with the former ISB 1077 and the current DCB1077 standard, a standard which supports the accurate, timely, and safer identification of NHS patients in England, by using barcodes for positive patient identification. 37 trusts, of the 81 trusts, are compliant with the current DCB1077 standard.

The Government has set out a commitment to make the NHS App British Sign Language (BSL) accessible in the 10-Year Health Plan, which covers the period to 2035.

Currently, there is no timeline for when the NHS App will be made BSL accessible. The NHS App roadmap is published and regularly updated, and is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/nhs-app/roadmap

The Department does not currently have plans to integrate Sleepio or other Digital Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (dCBT-I) solutions into primary care pathways or National Health Service app services but is committed to exploring options to make digital tools, supporting people living with insomnia, nationally available.

NHS England is currently running an open process to secure equitable national access to dCBT-I and has recently published a Request For Information and questionnaire. This creates an opportunity for all suppliers in this market to engage in a fair and transparent commercial process.

There is an ongoing programme of work within NHS England, exploring the feasibility of integrating Digital Therapeutics into the NHS app. This is in the early phases and will form the foundations of the HealthStore App Marketplace, which is a commitment in our10-Year Health Plan. The store will explore options to support the availability of digital health technologies across multiple condition areas.

The Department does not currently have plans to integrate Sleepio or other Digital Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (dCBT-I) solutions into primary care pathways or National Health Service app services but is committed to exploring options to make digital tools, supporting people living with insomnia, nationally available.

NHS England is currently running an open process to secure equitable national access to dCBT-I and has recently published a Request For Information and questionnaire. This creates an opportunity for all suppliers in this market to engage in a fair and transparent commercial process.

There is an ongoing programme of work within NHS England, exploring the feasibility of integrating Digital Therapeutics into the NHS app. This is in the early phases and will form the foundations of the HealthStore App Marketplace, which is a commitment in our10-Year Health Plan. The store will explore options to support the availability of digital health technologies across multiple condition areas.

The NHS App aims to use clear, universal lay terminology that is easy for the general public to understand. The content follows the National Health Service content style guide, which mandates writing in plain English to a reading age of nine to 11 years old. As part of the delivery of the 10-Year Health Plan, the NHS App will provide an improved and personalised experience for users, empowering them to access key elements of their health conditions like test results, and providing patients with advice and guidance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that will help them to understand their health and make informed choices about what to do next.

We regularly test our content with patients to ensure it is clear and effective. This includes working with users who have access needs, low digital literacy, or are from seldom-heard groups.

This work builds on the current test results feature in the NHS App that is successfully used by millions of people each month to access the results of tests they have conducted with their general practitioner.

There is signposting to Lab Tests Online-UK (LTO-UK) to help patients interpret their diagnostic results, though this may depend on how the patient's general practice (GP) has configured its systems. We currently provide links to LTO-UK for approximately 70 of the most common test types. While the NHS App itself primarily displays results along with any accompanying doctor’s comments or actions, GP systems can have embedded links to LTO-UK alongside the test results, providing a direct route for patients to access reliable information at the point of care.

The Department does not hold information relating to the availability of Sleepio at integrated care board (ICB) level or information on the plans to increase access to Sleepio in the NHS South West London ICB. The decision to commission Sleepio and other digital health technologies is currently determined at local level, by National Health Service organisations.

The Department is committed to exploring options to make digital tools, supporting people living with insomnia, nationally available. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the Department has committed to piloting a HealthStore app marketplace. The store will explore options to support the availability of digital health technologies across multiple condition areas.

NHS England are currently running an open process to secure equitable national access to digital Cognitive Behavioural Therapies for Insomnia and has recently published a Request For Information and questionnaire. This creates an opportunity for all suppliers in this market to engage in a fair and transparent commercial process.

The 10-Year Health Plan recently committed to offering services in the NHS App in multiple languages to reach people who have difficulty with English where it is not their first language. Scoping has started to understand how to deliver this in a safe and cost-effective way, so that translations are reliable, consistent across patient journeys, accessible by those that they are intended for, and are making good use of public funds. The NHS App is currently available in English and Welsh.

We are currently developing our plans in response to the 10-Year Health Plan commitments to support artificial intelligence (AI) assisted triage. We will do so following stringent clinical safety standards as outlined in the NHS Service Standard, as well as rigorous evaluations of health outcomes and operational impact.

When developed, AI triage within the NHS App will use artificial intelligence to assess symptoms and guide patients to the most appropriate care, whether it's self-care, booking an appointment, or seeking other help.

The NHS operates within a comprehensive regulatory framework for AI, underpinned by rigorous standards established by bodies including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, Health Research Authority, and Care Quality Commission. These agencies ensure that AI technologies are deployed safely and effectively within healthcare settings. Additionally, continuous monitoring after deployment is essential to ensure long-term safety of AI solutions, so we are working closely with regulators to identify new measures for mitigating risk and providing assurance. We are also leading on shaping a regulatory landscape that ensures AI technologies are safe, transparent and work for everyone.

We estimate there are around 450 independent sector providers that are providing National Health Service services via the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS). There is no classification of private healthcare or independent sector in the e-RS Directory of Services. Patients can already access referrals to these private healthcare providers via the NHS App where they have been shortlisted by their GP.