While the NHS Wales app is rapidly developing to become the digital front door of the NHS, the MyCare.scot app is still waiting to see the light of day.
The NHS Wales App is indeed the digital front door to the NHS. More than 650,000 people have registered to use the bilingual NHS Wales App since it launched in April 2023, equivalent to one in five adults in Wales.
In a written statement to the Senned at the end of January, Sarah Murphy, minister for mental health and wellbeing, said that more than 657,700 people have registered to use the app. Almost 5,000 people have been able to register using the new Welsh Identity Verification Service, which allows people’s identification to be verified at GP surgeries for those unable to use the standard NHS Login service.
More than three million repeat prescriptions have now been ordered. People are able to view their health and prescription history, and access trusted health advice and information, including screening and wellbeing services via the app. It also allows people to use secure messaging and provide feedback.
Murphy also outlined new services that had been introduced over the last few months. People can also view their referral to a hospital waiting list and get details of their hospital appointments, including directions and supporting information.
“Future developments will include summary health records and test results being available for people on the app,” she said.
A disaster in Scotland
In a plenary statement to the Senned, Murphy explained that this isn’t just an app that allows us to check a few basic facts and figures about health services. “This is a useful and powerful platform with a huge potential to change the way we all use and interact with our health service. It represents a fundamental shift in how we empower people to engage with their healthcare and health services,” she said, adding that it is “perfectly placed to evolve into the digital front door of the NHS”.
This stands in stark contrast to Scotland, where the Scotland NHS app is rapidly turning into a disaster.
In an interview at the end of last year, Neil Gray, Scotland’s secretary for health and social care, said he “can’t pretend to know” why Scotland’s NHS app is lagging behind England’s in development.
NHS Wales was happy to adapt NHS England’s app, while Scotland’s app is being developed independently by NHS Education for Scotland, in partnership with the Scottish government and local government group COSLA.
As Healthcare Today reported in December, the refusal of the SNP-dominated parliament to reuse the NHS app was due to the “political optics of adopting an English solution”. Instead, it has already spent £17 million on its own app. MyCare.scot, Scotland’s new health and social care online app, will allegedly be made available to everyone across Scotland from April, but it will not be completed until 2030.
