Scotland is slow to catch on to the benefits of an NHS App for all

It’s been reported that the First Minister himself is “perplexed” about why it is taking so long for his government to develop an NHS app for patients.

England has had an operational app since 2019, which allows everyone over the age of 13 to manage many aspects of their healthcare.

A GP is urging people to ‘tap the NHS App’ to manage their health care after a survey showed more than 1 in 5 people in the North West missed an NHS appointment because they forgot or were late.

placeholder image — A GP is urging people to ‘tap the NHS App’ to manage their health care after a survey showed more than 1 in 5 people in the North West missed an NHS appointment because they forgot or were late.

Using this “digital front door”, English patients can book and manage their GP appointments, order repeat prescriptions and crucially, view their GP health records, all from the comfort of their smartphone.

And increasingly, hospitals in England are using the app to allow patients to manage referrals and outpatient appointments, as well as check waiting time information and access parts of their hospital records. Yet we Scots will not have a fully functional NHS app until 2030, more than a decade after England.

Now, I am no computer expert, but I know how governments work – or don’t. All Scottish health chiefs had to do was pick up the phone to their counterparts down south and ask if they could use the English technology which is already proven to work. But apparently they decided against asking the English NHS for help, for fear of the “political optics of adopting an English solution.”

So, First Minister, there is no need to be “perplexed’ or even puzzled or confused. It’s your party’s fault that we don’t have a Scottish NHS app. The simple fact is that Scots are being denied the benefits of this important digital tool because of your party’s stubborn adherence to narrow-minded nationalism.

Apparently we can expect the first version of Scotland’s NHS app in April, but it will offer little more than access to a directory of health and social care services, information that we can already get online.

Surely the money spent on rushing out a beta-app just in time for the Holyrood election campaign would have been far better spent buying NHS England’s alpha version, which could be up and running in no time.

And I am sure that the UK health secretary, Wes Streeting, would have been happy to share it with his Scottish colleagues for less than the £12 million our Poundshop version is costing us.

All you had to do, Mr Swinney, was ask – nicely of course.