NHS App introduces prescription-ready alerts for patients

Millions of people in England can now receive an alert on their phone or smartwatch when their prescription is ready to collect.

The new NHS App feature is intended to reduce unnecessary journeys to pharmacies and prevent patients from having to call staff for updates. Notifications will be sent in near real time, although users must enable push alerts in their app settings to receive them.

The service builds on the NHS prescription tracker introduced last year, which allows patients to follow the progress of their medication in a similar way to tracking an online order. Almost 2.9 million people have already used the tracker.

Around one in three pharmacies in England currently offers the tracking service, with NHS England saying thousands of sites are already connected. Alerts will therefore only be available when a patient’s pharmacy is participating.

Health innovation minister James Frith said the change would make managing prescriptions more convenient while freeing pharmacy teams from avoidable calls. Patient and pharmacy representatives have also welcomed the update, although non-digital ways of obtaining information and support will remain available.

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