A new NHS App functionality, going live 30 January, will allow patients to generate a prescription barcode to collect their medicines from any pharmacy.

This will enable patients without a nominated pharmacy to take their prescription electronically to any pharmacy for collection without the need for a paper prescription.

GPs already generate most prescriptions electronically but the patient has to nominate a pharmacy to send it to.

During a general practice webinar yesterday, NHS England’s senior communications manager Paul Butler said: ‘There will be a new feature in the app around digital prescriptions, so rather than having paper copies there will be a backlog available in the app for people who have the app and want to use it that way.’

Patients will soon also be able to view all their prescriptions on the app, including one-off and repeat prescriptions. They will be able to view items prescribed, the prescription type and who the prescribing professional is.

NHS England said it would give patients ‘earlier visibility of exactly what their healthcare professional has prescribed for them’.

NHS England is launching a campaign next week to raise awareness of new functionalities and what the app can be used for, which will target all adults over 50 and women aged 18 to 50.

The campaign will focus on functionalities including GP record access and test results, repeat prescriptions and viewing appointments already booked, as NHS England wants to increase the use of the NHS App by up to 5% by March.

Mr Butler said: ‘This campaign is launching next week and it is going to run over a three-month period initially, to try and increase the use of the app itself.’

‘Three in four adults in England have got the app in their pocket – what we have now is a situation where we really need to drive usage of it and try to get people to use it more regularly for their health and care needs,’ he added.

But the campaign is not going to advertise GP appointments being booked through the app as that functionality is ‘a little bit patchy in some areas’.

Mr Butler said: ‘We are going really big on the functions that we know people have access to and are universally available – repeat prescriptions, record access, viewing appointments.

‘We are not pushing appointment bookings because we know that is a little bit patchy in some areas and we are not going to push that nationally.’

From February 2024, community pharmacy IT systems will automatically send details of patient consultations to general practice clinical IT systems, NHSE confirmed yesterday.

This article first appeared on our sister title Pulse.