Accurx Desktop: Sending individual messages via the NHS App (Pilot)

In January 2025, we launched a pilot to test sending Accurx individual patient messages via the NHS App, in collaboration with NHS England.

Over 12 weeks, we gathered significant data and conducted in-depth interviews. The findings show that iterations to the app, greater patient uptake, and further data collection are all necessary before we can roll out this functionality nationally. The NHS App is a critical part of delivering digital-first, patient-centred care, and we’re committed to this journey with NHS England. We’re currently working on a shared roadmap of improvements with NHS England, which will support being able to roll this functionality out to all practices nationally.

All individual messages sent via Accurx will now go via the NHS App as the first attempt to send the message. There will be no change to how you currently send individual messages. If the patient doesn't have the NHS App, we'll send it via SMS instead.

We check for the following conditions: 👇

You will be able to send the following messages to the NHS App inbox of patients who have their NHS App notifications switched on:

The table below shows the message types and the pathway the message can be sent via 👇

The following messages will only go via SMS and not the NHS App 👇

All message types that are already integrated with the NHS App (Batch messages and Appointment Reminders) will continue to be sent via the NHS App.

We are committed to ensuring messages can be delivered via the NHS App in a clinically safe manner. For this reason, if a patient hasn’t read a message in the NHS App within 60 minutes of being delivered, an SMS message (a fallback message) is sent to that patient as well. This fallback SMS is triggered using real-time read receipt information from the NHS App. We will automatically send the message via SMS if the NHS App cannot deliver a push notification to the patient’s phone.

Responses will continue to go back to the same places as if you were sending a patient an SMS or Florey by text.

The diagram below shows when we will use different channels for an individual message

There isn’t an option to override sending a message to the NHS App if a patient has the App and notifications on. However, a user can override a number pulled from the patient record displayed in Compose. If this number is altered manually in the compose screen, we will default to sending via SMS only.

When messages are sent via the NHS App (the patient has the App downloaded and notifications turned on), you will be able to see an update in the conversation thread as "sent- To: NHS App". We will not update the status once a message has been delivered or read (but may add this in the future).

If a patient doesn't read the message in the NHS App within 60 minutes, a backup SMS is sent. There won't be any updates on the status of this SMS message, as a patient has already been notified in the NHS App, and this SMS is only a backup mechanism (again, this might be changed in future).

If a patient doesn't have the NHS App downloaded or notifications switched on, then the message is sent immediately via SMS to reduce the risk of an unseen message, and the conversation thread will update as it currently does for messages sent via SMS, including failed delivery notifications if an SMS fails.

The NHS App is becoming a prominent channel for communication around a patient’s health, and the NHS App team are seeing more downloads every day. Patients should be increasingly familiar with receiving messages via the NHS App, as over half of the messages sent using Accurx are now integrated with the App.

To drive the success of this pilot, we recommend that you communicate this with your patients and encourage them to download the NHS App and switch their notifications “On”. You could do this in several ways:

However, if a patient does not want to download the NHS App, they will continue to receive messages via SMS as they do now.

Patients have a wide range of resources available to them both on the Accurx Help Centre and the NHS app Support Centre. Here are some suggested articles to help them when using the NHS app feature to view messages sent to them via Accurx. 👇

Patients can get in touch with the Accurx User Support team by going to the Help Centre and clicking on the messenger icon in the bottom right-hand corner. 👇

If the patient is experiencing an issue specific to the NHS App, they can contact the NHS App Support Team by going to the NHS website and selecting the option to contact the Help Desk.

Practices will be able to switch the NHS App individual integration off at any point. Please contact us using our Support chat function, and a member of the team will switch the integration off. Our team will ask why you would like to switch the integration, so that we can gather feedback and insight from practices, to help us improve the integration in the future.

The individual messaging integration will stay switched on for practices that had access to it during the pilot, whilst we analyse the results from the pilot. If you would prefer to switch the integration off, please contact our Support Team, who can do this for you.

If we cannot send a message to a patient's NHS App (either because they don't have the NHS App or notifications on) or the patient doesn't read their NHS App message within one hour, we will send them a fallback SMS. This fallback SMS doesn't incur any additional fragment costs - the cost of the fallback SMS is the same as sending an SMS from the compose.

If you still have any questions or concerns, feel free to chat with us using the green message bubble in the bottom right-hand corner of this page. 👉