To expect the elderly and other vulnerable people to be able to navigate online NHS app?

[Allonthesametrain]

Well just this. Fortunately as family we are able to help and it's heartbreaking when your elderly parents get a message and don't know to respond because it takes you to an app.

The letter for an appt can come after the online confirmation so that guarantee isn't there. For our older generation, the worry of making sure on time, leaving extra early, getting whatever it takes to get there.

As I said, fortunately as family we are there to help but it makes me worry about those who don't have support. I know SS will most likely be involved but how much due to their caseload, no matter how much they care and are amazing.

Fully aware of aĺl issues of funding but there really needs to be a better way than to send a text to an 87 year old to then go to an app which becomes overwhelming.

I agree. I used to work with people who had learning difficulties and even those who were at the milder end of the scale, so to speak, and not receiving very much support at all, struggled to use tech, so it’s not just older people we need to be thinking about here.

I'm 78 and pretty savvy where apps are concerned but I've asked one hospital where I attend regularly to send me letters by mail rather than just on the app as I don't have a printer. In order to keep my medical records I need paper copies, as do many other people.
I understand that postage costs can be high for the NHS but I have recent experience of a misread stool sample leading to completely unnecessary expensive tests (e.g. colonoscopy) to rule out anything serious! And mine isn't the only case I know of.

I’ve asked for appointments to be sent by text to my mum. (late 80s)
She can navigate her computer and smart phone quite well but will often miss something on the NHS app.
She will always respond to a text and so far this has worked well.
My in-laws have no tech at all, they do not have the internet and MIL still has a ‘pay as you go’ brick phone.
They could not have their land line phone turned over to digital because they don’t have the hard ware. One day they just won’t have the land line anymore!
They are terrified of getting involved in tech as they watch way too many television programmes about people being scammed.
They still visit their bank and building society in person and will ring their surgery for Drs appointments which is getting harder and harder.

This generation are the ones that use Drs the most and it’s getting increasingly difficult to navigate.

My mum struggles with technology, she is a healthy and independent 77 year old but worried she presses the wrong button and worried she will get scammed, so is reluctant to deal with things in an app she would rather have a letter or talk to someone.

ive tried reassuring her and giving her signs to watch out for a scam but she just isn’t confident with technology.

My mum is 80 and doesn’t use tech at all no email, won’t use a smart phone, no iPad, no broadband. Has a brick mobile she turns on if she needs to make a call occasionally and turns off. Has a landline phone - BT were supposed to be turning that off and moving everyone to broadband but heard nothing further. She lives on a street of bungalows and her neighbours are older and same.
She navigates life pretty ok as she’s in an area with an older population and services seem to accept that eg she goes in person to optician and drs to make appointments etc.
She hasn’t got nhs app. Shes currently needing hospital treatment for 2 separate conditions and finding it very stressful. First one she needed to change apt and I sorted - was a live chat no one to speak to (cataract eye clinic so demographic was older people) other one has an answer phone but no one ever calls back. She needed minor injuries and check in was on an iPad which I did.
I presume she’s avoided nhs app by saying no phone or email?!

It's a really poorly designed app even if you are, as I am, relatively tech savvy.
Appointments just " allocated" to you via the app seem to assume nobody works or has other commitments. Sometimes you get a link where you can change or cancel them. Sometimes you don't. No wonder so many appointments are missed.
Elderly people who are not used to apps don't stand a chance.
Technology can be a wonderful thing to help efficiency, but it needs to be well designed technology and there should always be an option of speaking to a human when your individual circumstances means that you can't access the technology or your particular needs don't " fit" the tech profile.

Really ?
Todays generation have grown up with the tech and learning as they go. Many other people like myself came to tech later because it wasn't around when I was young, and have had to learn. The generation above me will to a degree, struggle with it but many will be able to learn.
A lot of tech, especially apps, are totally pointless anyway and a waste of time for what they actually achieve.

My biggest issues when helping my Mum and my in-laws was just signing up to the app itself. We used the information provided by their GP, but when we tried to use it, the app needed something different entirely. They went back to the GP who no idea what info the app was asking for. We went around and around in circles. We eventually got it sorted and my in-laws were able to use it successfully. My Mum however has some cognitive decline and needed me to help, which was OK until she lost access to the app and we went around and around in circles again.

I’m tech savvy and find the NHS app awful to navigate

Good for you. A sample size of one isn't particularly representative.

Yes, it's unreasonable to expect everyone to use apps. I'm not elderly and I don't like them and won't use them unless absolutely necessary. Don't assume SS to be involved, or hospitals or GPs to keep accurate records or even care that some people physically can't access the limited information they deign to send. Someone I knew kept receiving text messages and letters even though all parties were well aware they were seriously ill, blind and elderly. They literally couldn't see anything and had no one to read letters to them. They couldn't call or book a taxi and were told they were ineligible for hospital transport because they should just get a neighbour to ferry them around to various appointments. Instead, they just didn't go to any GP or hospital appointments or receive any treatment.

I just spotted this petition that people might like. It currently has around 250 signatures so might not come to much (unless it takes off). The (unofficial) UK Government Petitions bot on Bluesky posted info about a petition that had been rejected for being too similar to this one.

Also, if you are your family's IT support then this document, by Phil Agre from 1996 (!) is rather nice, on 'How to help someone use a computer'.

Enshrine the right for citizens to live offline in UK law
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/753015
Created by Richard Asher
Closes on 15 July 2026

"Enshrine the right to live and participate in society without the internet or digitally connected services into UK law. We believe banking, voting, tax, public transport, food, education, etc., should never require ownership of a mobile phone or any digital devices.

We want the provision of analogue alternatives, such as counter service, to be required under this law.

The trend is clear: we feel we are extremely close to UK citizens being forced to own a connected device, regardless of whether they wish to be online or whether they can afford it. This could discriminate against the homeless, the elderly, the lesser educated and anybody who may not wish to own or carry a device. It could also accelerate the loss of human interaction. We believe it represents dangerous tech dependency too, with no analogue backup in the event of power/network failure or cyberattacks."

Jo

It really isn't on to assume when you set up a service that everybody who might need to use it has a family who can help them.

Like many others we have no children, no family under 100 miles away and our closest relative is older and less tech savvy than we are.

If you are going to insist that people use technology it really has to be fit for purpose with no glitches or other issues and I am not sure that such technology exists or will exist in the future.

I do think they should be required to include all sections of community when testing apps.
I know someone who volunteered to attend emergency incident training. She’s only late 60s but doesn’t have a smart phone. Lots of people who volunteered were her age or older. They had to play along with a scenario I think it was pretend bomb and pretend casualties and all emergency services were there. There was a form for survivors to fill in on an app and she said many didn’t have smart phones or couldn’t access app or didn’t have glasses to see app (and this was a pretend scenario- in reality if you had just been in a scary incident your ability to interact with tech was even less) she said it highlighted how many more people/paper forms were needed the app wasn’t a miracle cure.

My issue is the opposite, my trust sends letters, they sometimes arrive after the appointment! I would much prefer texts. Why can’t appointments be sent as emails, in an app or by letter depending on patient preference. Personally the nhs app I find is simple to use (my elderly parents have no issues with it either)

This is my mum. We are in Scotland and so there is no NHS app but so many things require a smartphone or tablet. No she can’t scan a QR code because her mobile is a 2005 flip phone. No she can’t register on your website or send an email because she doesn’t have a laptop. Even her Tesco club card is registered under my sisters name because you need an enail to sign up. She can’t access offers or coupons at Lidl.

she has no interest in computers or tech and it is a worry that so many places are requiring online skills. At least she can still go into her local bank branch, but for how long?

Has nobody spelled out to NHS England that a missed appointment costs more than a stamp?

The NHS is supposedly into equality. Not making reasonable adjustments arsing from age, a protected characteristic accirding to the Equality Act (2010) is discriminatory.

One wonders what all the highly paid EDI Directors and their teams are up to. They certainly aren't earning their corn.

I've never felt that Disability has been an interest of theirs - long before any more contentious matters came up, the training was never, ever about disabled people. I have no issue with 'don't discriminate against faith/ethnicity/sexuality/etc' (other than the fact that they needed to train people in the first place) - but when it doesn't occur to anybody that wearing a face mask or turning away when speaking or requiring check in at an incredibly busy and loud clinic to have to stand and wait is going to cause problems for anybody with sight, hearing or physical issues, because that's not deemed important enough to think about improving, that irks me enormously.

Am I being obtuse? You still get paper letters for the NHS if you can't manage the app?

I work for the NHS and its fairly rare that elderly people fail to attend their appointments. For the majority of the population the app is very beneficial and easy to use and you can opt in for a peper service, or if you don't view your letter on the app they send a paper copy

I do get that many people struggle to access apps and paper forms are obviously needed for some. But someone in their late 60s who hasn't got a smart phone has actively chosen to opt out of technology. That's a choice they've made and is not someone who can't use a phone/app.

And how would paper forms help if they didn't have their glasses?

I literally can't use it. It left me in tears having a panic attack. Yeah I'm prone to such things.

But it wouldn't accept my identity, it kept demanding bizarre things like I had to show a picture of my passport which it rejects then do a video reading out a series of numbers?! I don't do video calls but tried to in vain, and could not get it to accept what I was doing.

I know it would be way worse for someone who isn't confident with apps at all.

The internet has been around in common use for 25 years ish, similar for mobiles. Smart phones have also been around for a long time. Tablets can often be easier to use. There has to be a change over at some point. Of course reasonable adjustments should be made for people who struggle because of disability/capacity.

Maybe they are thinking along the lines of "when they pay for my phone they can tell me what to do with it" Just a thought!
my friend is 69 and since having a mild stroke struggles with things like this.

So scenario was scan QR code or something to get app or line up for man with clipboard and paper form and the people running incident scenario were surprised by how many needed man and clipboard.
Yes it’s her choice not to have a smart phone.

I work in Learning Disabilities - lots of my client group can't work a smart phone, some have land lines, some have nothing. A letter (those of them who live independently with PAs or support packages) they can show to their supporters and get explanation about what it's about and support to attend... appointments that vanish onto an app - nope.

We push back CONSTANTLY against management's indiscriminate drive to paperless and it's an exhausting battle.