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The following blog has been adapted from the live session transcript of ‘NHS App - Transitioning From the Digital Front Door to the Digital Companion’, held at HETT Show 2026.
From Digital Front Door to Digital Companion: What’s Next for the NHS App?
The NHS App has become an increasingly important way for people to interact with health services. But as expectations of digital healthcare evolve, the question is no longer simply how to provide more services through the app - it is how to create a more connected, personalised experience that helps people navigate the NHS when they need it most. That was a key theme of a panel discussion at HETT 2026, bringing together perspectives from NHS England, patient experience, primary care and industry to explore what the next phase of the NHS App could look like.
From transactions to a digital companion
Helen Clifton, Executive Director for Products and Platforms at NHS England, highlighted just how far the NHS App has come.
Following investment from 2023, the platform has expanded the range of services and tasks available to users. The discussion highlighted almost 80 million logins in a single month, with around 30% of the population using the app to complete tasks. Millions of people are also using it to interact with secondary care appointments and access health records and test results.
That scale means the NHS App has already established itself as a digital front door to NHS services.
But the ambition is now moving beyond transactions.
As Helen explained, the longer-term vision is for the NHS App to become a “health companion” - a more personalised service that can support people throughout their health journey, from prevention and planned care to unplanned care and services closer to home. The distinction is important. A transactional service helps someone complete a task. A digital companion should help them understand what they need and guide them towards the right support.
Making access simpler
One of the biggest opportunities discussed was unified access.
For patients, navigating the NHS can be complicated. Services can vary depending on where someone lives, what technology their local service uses and what functionality is available to them.
Carmelo Insalaco, Co-founder and CEO of Rapid Health, described the ambition simply: it should not matter which “door” a patient enters through; what matters is that they ultimately reach the right service.
AI triage could form an important part of this.
Rather than simply directing people towards a service, AI-enabled triage can help assess their needs and determine what type of support may be appropriate, helping people get to the right place at the right time.
The panel linked this directly to one of the biggest pressures facing primary care: capacity.
If technology can reduce some of the administrative and triage burden on clinicians, it can potentially free up more time for clinical care while helping patients access services more efficiently.
AI should enable care, not replace it.
The discussion also made clear that AI triage is not about removing clinicians from the decision-making process.
Ragu Rajan, a GP partner in Sussex, Digital Lead for Sussex Primary Care Collaborative and PCN Clinical Director, explained how his practice uses a probabilistic model to support differential diagnosis and prioritisation, while keeping the clinician involved in the final decision. The model can consider information provided by the patient alongside existing clinical notes, allowing clinicians to use their own contextual knowledge to override or adjust the AI recommendation where appropriate.
This human oversight remains critical as AI becomes more embedded in healthcare.
For the panel, the value of AI was therefore less about replacing clinical judgement and more about supporting better use of limited capacity.
Carmelo highlighted data from Rapid Health’s deployments, including 6.5 million automated triages, as an example of how AI triage could influence patient and practice behaviour. He argued that helping practices better understand which patients need to be seen immediately - and which can safely be seen later - could help unlock capacity and reduce waiting times.
The wider point is that technology should enable clinicians to spend more time delivering care, rather than simply adding another digital layer to an already pressured system.
Personalisation matters
If the NHS App is to become a genuine digital companion, however, simply making more services available will not be enough.
Chris Graham, Chief Executive at Picker Institute, pointed to the current variation in what patients can access through the app. In some areas, people can book GP appointments or access medical records through the platform, while in others those options may not be available. This inconsistency can make it difficult for people to understand what the NHS App can actually do for them. He also highlighted the opportunity to move towards a more person-centred and relational experience.
Rather than the app simply broadcasting information to patients, the ambition should be to create a meaningful two-way interaction - allowing people to engage with health services on their own terms and in their own time.
That could ultimately mean a service that understands more about the individual, their circumstances and their health needs, rather than treating every interaction as an isolated transaction.
Keeping digital inclusion at the centre
But a more digital NHS must not become an NHS that works only for people who are confident using technology.
Digital inclusion was an important part of the discussion, particularly around people who may have limited digital confidence, complex needs or no reliable access to digital services.
The panel stressed that digital transformation should expand choice rather than remove it. Helen pointed to continued access to face-to-face and telephone services, alongside work to improve accessibility and support people in using digital services.
This distinction is important: digital should provide another route into care, not become the only route. For some people, digital will be the easiest and most convenient way to access support. For others, it will not be appropriate. The challenge is to build a system that can accommodate both.
From technology to service transformation
Perhaps the most important message from the discussion was that this is not really a conversation about the NHS App alone. The technology may provide the interface, but meaningful transformation depends on the services behind it.
As Helen highlighted, AI triage and digital access only work if the right services are commissioned, supported by the right policies and available to receive patients once they have been directed there.
That means moving beyond the idea of simply adding new functionality to the NHS App.
The bigger opportunity is to rethink how people navigate and access healthcare altogether. The NHS App has already demonstrated the appetite for digital access. The next stage is about using that scale to create a more connected experience - one that helps people understand their options, navigate services and receive the right support at the right time.
What comes next?
The transition from digital front door to digital companion represents a significant shift in how people could interact with the NHS.
AI triage, personalised data and unified access all have the potential to play a role. But the technology itself is only one part of the picture.
The real challenge will be bringing together technology, clinical expertise, service design, commissioning and patient experience to create a system that works for people.
As the discussion at HETT 2026 demonstrated, there are still important questions to answer around safety, accountability, consistency, accessibility and trust.
But perhaps the biggest opportunity is to move away from thinking about digital healthcare as a collection of individual transactions and towards a more connected experience that supports people throughout their health journey.
The NHS App may have established the digital front door. The next question is what happens once we walk through it.
Session Speakers
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