PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
General Practitioners (27 November 2023)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of GP practices do not allow patients to (a) order repeat prescriptions and (b) book appointments through the NHS app.

Asked by:
Karin Smyth (Labour)

The following table shows the number of appointments booked through the NHS App for each of the last twelve months:

Date	Appointments Booked
1/10/2022	204,247
1/11/2022	173,320
1/12/2022	136,525
1/1/2023	199,107
1/2/2023	165,217
1/3/2023	179,331
1/4/2023	153,212
1/5/2023	175,208
1/6/2023	174,644
1/7/2023	173,079
1/8/2023	182,027
1/9/2023	208,185
1/10/2023	198,044

Practices that have enabled the functionality to order repeat prescriptions or book appointments digitally can offer this through several different systems, including the NHS App. The Department does not hold data showing which system is used by each practice.

Our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care commits to giving patients at 90% of practices access to four key functions in the NHS App:

- to view their prospective clinical records (including test results);

- order repeat prescriptions;

- see messages from their practices as an alternative to text messaging; and

- manage routine appointments.

Answered by:
Andrea Leadsom (Conservative)
30 November 2023