The milestone followed integration of the trust's Patient Hub with the NHS App.

Director of health informatics, James Rawlinson, said: ‘This is a major national, digital milestone and something we are very proud to be the first in England to have achieved.

‘But we are most proud of the difference it could make to the lives of our patients. The national goal for the NHS App is for it to be the NHS's "digital front door" which can make "managing healthcare easy as online banking" for patients. We hope our efforts to integrate PIFU appointments into the NHS App means that, for these patients, this is the case.

‘We'll continue to strive to set the pace for digital innovations in the NHS nationally. And we'll continue in our commitment to developing digital tools which make improvements in patient care.'

Patients can now use the NHS App to request, confirm, rebook or cancel their PIFU hospital appointments and view any important information about their hospital care.

The integration followed a successful trial on a PIFU appointment pathway in early December. Further integration is planned across all PIFU appointment pathways. It's estimated around 8,000 PIFU appointment pathways could benefit from the integration by the end of 2026.

The work to develop integration between Patient Hub and the NHS App also means other information - such as outpatient and surgical appointments, questionnaires, patient information, hospital letters and pre-assessments - can now be accessed and completed through the NHS App.