The NHS App, announced at the end of 2017, piloted in September-December 2018. It started with one GP practice in Liverpool and grew to 34 practices across England, eventually growing to 3,200 registered patients, exceeding its target registration group by over 1,200. The NHS report was issued on 8 April.

• Most used the app to view their patient records. Unless the patient had given prior consent to their GP to view their full patient record, only a summary was available through the app. This will revert to full patient records with the ability to add to the record as the default by April 2020.
• For the pilot users, they reported positively on the app for prescription renewals; it was used for 662 repeat prescriptions and was found by 87 percent to be ‘easy and convenient’ as well as the app’s ‘most useful service’.
• On booking appointments, the feedback was not so positive. Users had difficulty understanding the jargon used in booking.
• They also found the two-factor authentication for security purposes annoying. For the full implementation, the development team is planning to add a biometric log in.

The NHS hopes to roll out the app to all English GP practices by July 2019. While the app became available in December on Google Play and the Apple App Store, patients have to wait for their GP to connect to it. Mobihealthnews, NHS report site

A counterpoint to this is the final closing of the Microsoft HealthVault later this year. Users will have until 20 November to migrate their data. HealthVault was one of the first services to allow consumers to record and share electronic health data. Microsoft has already shut down two related services, HealthVault Insights and the Health Dashboard. Most of these storage services have shut down (Revolution Health, Google Health, Google Fit, Dossia) with the surviving Apple Health Records and GetReal’s Lydia. Mobihealthnews