Using AI, the new My Companion tool will give patients direct access to trusted health information, so there are always two experts in every consulting room - the clinician and the patient. It will help patients articulate their health needs and preferences confidently - providing information about a health condition if they have one, or a procedure if they need one. It will support patients to ask questions, including any they may have forgotten about or felt too embarrassed to raise at an in-person appointment.
A new App feature called My Choices will help people find everything from their nearest pharmacy, to the best rated providers for heart, hip or knee surgery. It will provide a range of data on providers across the country - such as which delivers the shortest waits, has the best patient outcomes, the best patient satisfaction scores, or is the closest to home - so anyone, anywhere, can pick care based on their own preferences.
This will end the ‘one size fits all' approach, which often misses the distinct needs of different people, including women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds or people who live in more rural communities, among many others.
Health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, said: ‘Technology can be the great leveller. Look at what Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert, has done for personal finances. For ordinary people - who could never afford their own financial adviser - it is simple and easy to make your hard-earned money go further. Our 10 -Year plan for health will do the same for NHS patients - giving them easy access to information, to help them improve their health.'
Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS national director of transformation, said: ‘These exciting reforms will be invaluable in combating health disparities and providing world-leading access to those who have not previously been able to get care on their own terms - by providing transparent data about services or supporting carers to manage the care of loved ones. We will co-design these with patients and carers to ensure that the app can be accessed by everyone.
‘All this and more will be available from your pocket, making controlling your own healthcare as easy as placing an online shopping order.'
The government has already exceeded its target to increase the number of hospitals allowing patients to view appointment information on the NHS App up to 85% by the end of March 2025. This has now reached 87%, up from 68% in July 2024. It means millions of patients are already starting to benefit from greater choice and flexibility in the way they access healthcare.
Since July 2024, these features have saved almost 5.7 million hours of staff time, including 1.26 million clinical hours across health settings - together with the 1.5 million missed appointments avoided, the shift to the NHS App has helped save the equivalent of £622m.
In response Ruth Rankine, primary care director at the NHS Confederation, said: ‘This is a significant and encouraging step towards delivering on the ambitions of primary care leaders to work in a more integrated and collaborative way across neighbourhood teams. The deployment of cloud-based, innovative technology – capable of operating across devices and care settings – reflects the reality of modern general practice and the ambition of our members. This will not only improve care for patients but reduce workload for GPs and their staff.
‘Primary care leaders are ready to play their part in achieving the government's three ambitions – creating a digital health service, moving more care out of hospital and closer to people's homes, and providing more preventative care. The introduction of innovative new technologies is going to be vital to underpinning these ambitions, including creating truly neighbourhood health services.'
