NHS app not really fit for purpose

[likelysuspect]

The NHS app drives me mad. Half of the stuff you want isnt there, appointments, referrals etc

Half the stuff is on another 'patient portal' which doesnt connect properly and is difficult to navigate

Received a text about an upcoming scan, I cant make the scan, the only option on the online letter is to 'confirm' that you can make it, not to request a reschedule. So it gives a number to phone to reschedule. So I phone and it gives a long long message about how theres a patient portal to log into to change/reschedule appointments. I go into this while on hold thinking it would be quicker, my appointment is not there (and another one is missing as well). Even the description of the website and the instructions in the voice message you receive is not accurate, says to click on the 'cancel or reschedule appointment link', there is no such link

Then it says to 'follow the instruction in the text message', but the instructions dont give an option to reschedule, only to confirm you're attending

Im therefore on hold and this is the second time because by the time I got to number 7 in the queue earlier, it just cut me off. I phoned back, to find myself at number 11. Im now at number 6.

The amount of things which are missing on there, it doesnt have a number of my regular prescriptions for example.

I have no issues with it. My regular medications are on there, test results are on there and I can request repeat prescriptions. For me it works really well.

A lot of the features are GP initiated, so people have mixed experiences depending on what features their surgery does/doesn’t support

Some things work well, others not so , obvious example is the Dr on GMB this morning telling people that, if they want to check if their various vaccines are upto date, look on the app, well mine certainly doesn’t have that information, infact it has no information about anything pre 2023 and I’m sure I not unique

It is improving but very dependent on local providers and their existing systems being compatible.

I find this a lot that some appointments and referrals show up and others dont. I have 3 outstanding referrals there, none of which are showing

I have 3 upcoming hospital appointments from those referrals, only two of which is showing on my NHS app

On the patient portal, only one of those appointments shows.

There is a link to the hospital trust which just as bad because it asks to sign up to a portal to 'manage your appointment', its asking for pass codes and booking references which are not on the letter, so I cant use that either

And the time spent navigating all of this and creating a new password and log in for other portals or bits of portals is quite difficult. This is why people dont come to appointments

I have a mixture of appointment reminders and invites, some on text, some on paper, its not all on the same text number so it gets lost in my text messages, the text is just a number and doesnt come up with a name like 'blah blah MRI department' or something like that and within that you have to download the letter.