Hospital referrals and appointments in the NHS App

If a patient is aged 16-17, they may not be able to view or manage some of their appointments. This is because some NHS trusts require patients to be aged 18 or over to access these appointments. 

Patients can find support to view or manage their referrals and appointments on the NHS website.  

The current core and additional features for hospital referrals and appointments are: 

Core features:

• view referrals and appointments in one place
• see a single point of contact for appointments 
• get supporting information for appointments 
• view past appointments 

Additional features:

• view, amend and cancel appointments
• receive notifications and messaging
• see documents
• complete pre-appointment questionnaires
• manage documents and questionnaires
• select paperless preferences

NHS App users can also see the average waiting time for the estimated month that their first hospital treatment will take place in all NHS acute and specialist acute trusts.

114 trusts are live with the core features, and 77 of those are live with a mixture of additional features.

Available in all live trusts.

View hospital referrals and appointments in one place 

Patients can view their referrals and appointments in one place in the NHS App. 

How it works:

The NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS)  

Patients will be able to see directly bookable and indirectly bookable appointments in the NHS App.  

They will also be able to: 

• see all Referral Advisory Service (RAS) requests including the status - if accepted, a time and date for their appointment will be generated and an appointment will be made visible 

• see booked future appointments from directly bookable referrals 

• edit or cancel a booking via e-RS 

• view estimated waiting times for their hospital 

Portal provider data 

The NHS App will: 

• display all future hospital appointments across trusts, including location and date 

• seamlessly connect patients to further information and amendment capabilities in portals, without having to exit the NHS App or log in more than once 

Single point of contact and supporting information for appointments 

Once the patient has clicked view or manage this appointment they continue to the portal and then can view: 

• a single point of contact for appointments (email address and/or a phone number) enabling them to direct their query to the right team. 

• supporting information to help them prepare for their hospital appointments, including any documents, the appointment time and date and, where available, maps and directions

Past appointments 

The NHS App shows users past appointment information for their hospital care at NHS acute trusts for up to the previous two years. This information includes appointment details, and any documentation or questionnaires associated with their past appointments. 

An appointment will be considered as past after midnight on the day of the appointment. After a maximum of two years, the appointment will no longer be displayed in the App. 

The App takes information provided by trusts’ patient engagement portals (PEPs). The data shown will vary between trusts as it depends on what is provided by PEPs and surfaced in the App. 

A mixture of the following features are available in some live trusts. 

Patients can view their hospital referrals and future appointments in one place on the NHS App.

Book, change and cancel appointments 

How it works:

The NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) 

Using the NHS App, patients can choose the place, time and date for their first appointment. Multiple referrals can be managed at any time, as long as they are first appointments. 

Patients can only book hospital appointments in the App if they have been referred through the NHS e-Referral Service. 

For directly bookable referrals patients can select a clinic (from a subset selected by GPs) and then select a specific booking slot. When confirmed, this is converted into an appointment. 

For indirectly bookable referrals the clinic will send a date and time and the patient is able to confirm this appointment. 

For booked appointments  the first appointments booked through e-RS are visible to patients. They can cancel or request a change. e-RS appointments take precedence over portal appointments where a match is made. 

Portal provider data 

Following the first appointment, all following appointments are managed by portal providers and displayed in the NHS App. 

There are two types of rebooking: synchronous and asynchronous. Some portal providers offer synchronous rescheduling, while others offer asynchronous rescheduling. 

For rescheduling appointments synchronous requests can be rebooked directly by patients in the Patient Administration System (PAS). Asynchronous requests are sent to a staff member at the trust to process and update.  

For cancelling appointments like rescheduling, cancellation is synchronous and asynchronous, depending on the portal provider managing the appointment. Synchronous requests will cancel the booking in the PAS and asynchronous requests will be sent it to a staff member to process. Certain bookings (such as urgent referrals) cannot be cancelled and the option will be hidden. 

Asynchronous requests to amend or cancel an appointment will show in the NHS App with a pending status until the request is processed. If the request is not accepted it will stay as a patient’s booked appointment. Some portal providers may have their own booking team and run this as a service.  

Patients will receive notifications and messages from the NHS App as their primary communication channel, notifying them of any changes or actions they need to take in their healthcare journey. 

This includes notifications about changes or reminders about their hospital appointments, documents, or questionnaires (for example cancelled or upcoming appointment or incomplete questionnaire), and broadcast messages (for example department temporary closure). 

Patients may also receive notifications from existing channels delivered by Patient Engagement Portals (PEPs), such as SMS or email, and will be able to view messages in the NHS App message centre. 

Patients who wish to receive notifications and messages via the NHS App will need to ensure they have enabled notifications for the NHS App on their mobile device, and in the NHS App as well. 

Learn how to switch on notifications.

Documents

Patients can access documents associated with their appointments via the NHS App. This includes appointment letters, outcome letters, and discharge summaries.

Patients will be notified when they have a document to read and be able to view the status of that document. 

Patients will also be able to download their documents for their records.

Questionnaires

Patients can complete pre-consultation and waiting list validation questionnaires associated with their appointments. 

This includes notifications about new and updated questionnaires that require their attention.  

Patients will also be able to download a copy of their questionnaires for their records.  

If patients do not complete their questionnaires through the NHS App, existing trust workflows would apply. 

Documents and questionnaire manager 

Patients in some trusts with documents and questionnaires features are shown their documents and questionnaires in one, easy to navigate, area in the NHS App - under the ‘Hospital documents and questionnaires’ screen.

Information is ordered by date and users can see the status of their documents and questionnaires, including whether their are any actions they need to take. 

Users can also filter documents and questionnaires, such as sorting by date or alphabetical order. 

Patients are now able to access their hospital appointment documents in the NHS App without the need for a paper copy. 

Patients can view information about what paperless means and select or change their paperless preference where this functionality is enabled 

If patients have already selected a preference in the patient portal, any change they make will change both on the patient portal and in the NHS App.