User researcher Fern Williams describes how we created a new paper patient registration form to complement the online ‘Register with a GP surgery’ service, allowing everyone to have a consistent user experience and leaving no one digitally excluded.

One of the guiding principles of the ‘Register with a GP surgery’ service is to be accessible and inclusive to all. Though there is a shift towards digital to make registering with a GP surgery easier and more convenient for both patients and practice staff, we haven’t forgotten the importance of developing a paper registration form for those who prefer not to or can’t use a digital service.

Most prescriptions are still paper-based in secondary care. Business analyst Andy Harrison describes the technical groundwork we’ve laid to allow these settings to go digital.

The little green FP10 paper prescriptions have all but disappeared in primary care. 18 years ago, we launched the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) and it has since become an indispensable tool for primary care teams. Nearly all GP practices use it and about 95% of primary care prescriptions are now sent electronically. Last year, that amounted to 1 billion items dispensed using the service. It’s a safer, faster and more convenient way to prescribe.

Josh Healey, User-Centred Design Lead for the Register with a GP surgery service, explains how redesigning the first page of the service made it more accessible for everyone – and how they created a framework to measure impact.

General practitioners (GPs) play an important role in our communities. GPs treat common medical conditions, refer patients to hospitals and act as the first place many go to for health and wellbeing advice. This is why it is so important that everyone can register with and see a GP when they need to.

Locum pharmacist Faraaz Hussain describes his experience of using the new National Care Records Service.

I spend part of my week in a hospital setting and part as a locum in community pharmacies. The Summary Care Record application (SCRa) has always been an indispensable tool in this work, allowing quick and secure access to clinical information, but it can be tricky to access when moving between sites for locum clinicians like me.

In December 2022, I was approached by the Summary Care Record application team at NHS England to test out the National Care Records Services (NCRS), the successor to the SCRa. This is some of what I have found out.

Matthew Firth describes our best practice policies around APIs – and how the most important one is not about the technical aspects of the work.

For the past 3 years, we have been on a mission to make integration easier within the NHS for people building healthcare technology.