The number of practices that offer online registration for new patients has more than doubled in the last 12 months, meaning that almost all GP practices in England offer the service, according to figures from NHS England.
More than 6,150 practices now support registration through the NHS App, NHS.uk or surgery websites, which is 98.4% of GP surgeries in England.
More than 3.8 million patients have used the online system since it launched in November 2022, including nearly 1.7 million in the last six months.
Online registration is one of several new features being rolled out on the NHS App to drive efficiency by saving administration time for practices.
Related Article: Former nurse appointed as top DHSC civil servant
New NHS data shows the innovations enabled patients to order around 4.6million repeat prescriptions and access over six million test results directly through the app each month last year, freeing up an estimated 2.6 million practice hours.
Health minister, Karin Smyth, said she was ‘delighted’ that most GP practices offered online registration and that it was part of a move towards a digital NHS.
‘This is all about putting patients first, making it easier for people to access the care they need, when they need it.
‘As part of our Plan for Change, this government is transforming the NHS from analogue to digital, and getting it back on its feet, so that we have a healthcare system that’s fit for the future,’ she said.
Ming Tang, interim chief digital and information officer at NHS England, said work was afoot to ‘create a blueprint for the move from analogue to digital healthcare so that even more patients will benefit from innovations and technologies like this for generations to come.’
Registering online includes timesaving features for patients such as checking they are in the catchment area for the practice and translation tools, making it more accessible for those whose first language is not English.
Related Article: Lack of nurses on hospital shifts preventing safe care, warns Unison
Bex Cottey, practice business manager at Conisbrough Group Practice near Doncaster, said online registration was working well.
‘We’ve been offering online registration using the Register with a GP surgery service for over a year. We find it really useful, especially when people are wanting to register a whole family. They can do it in their own time, they’re not standing at the front desk for hours, filling in everybody’s information.
‘We would often have people that couldn’t remember the name of the medication their child was using, and they would have to go home, look it up and come back with the paper registration. This is now a thing of the past, though we do have the new look paper form for anyone that needs it,’ she said.
Jess Boyes, care navigator supervisor at The Roxton Practice in Immingham, North East Lincolnshire, said that the service has helped ease workload.
Related Article: Troponin measure needed to accurately predict cardiovascular risk, say researchers
‘All of our reception team at the practice and the practice managers feel the online service has significantly reduced pressure on the team,’ she said.
A version of this article was first published on our sister title Healthcare Leader.
