The NHS said that using this app could help prevent you missing appointments (Image: Getty)
Brits have been urged to set their phones up a certain way as 16 million GP appointments were missed last year. The NHS is encouraging people to make sure their phones will remind them of upcoming appointments.
By turning on push alerts from the NHS App you can get reminders about appointments and have the option to rearrange any you can’t make, helping to free up millions of appointments for others.
According to a new survey, nearly one in four people have missed an NHS appointment because they forgot or arrived too late.
The survey of patients across England found that 12% said they had forgotten about an appointment in the past, and 11% had arrived “too late”. As reported by NHS England, the latest appointment statistics also show that patients did not attend 16 million GP appointments in 2025.
“No shows” accounted for one in 23 appointments (4.3%) – the equivalent of an entire day of missed appointments at every GP practice in England each month. The figures also reveal that the NHS arranged 376 million appointments at GP practices in 2025 – 8.4 million more (2.3%) than in 2024.
Patients did not attend 16 million GP appointments in 2025 (Image: Getty)
Dr Amanda Doyle, national director for primary care and community services at NHS England, said: “People will often have genuine reasons for not being able to make an appointment or arriving too late, but it’s really important that they let us know if possible so we can offer the appointment to someone else.
« One of the easiest ways you can reduce the risk of missing an appointment is by tapping the NHS App to turn on notifications to get reminders, so you can cancel or rearrange them if they need to.”
She added: “I’d encourage all NHS App users to make the most of what the app has to offer so they never forget an appointment.”
Dr Zubir Ahmed, Health Innovation Minister, commented: “In the busy lives we all lead, it can be easy to forget an NHS appointment or need to reorganise it at the last minute.
“That’s why I’d encourage everyone to tap the NHS App and turn on notifications – so you can stay on top of your appointments and let us know if you need to reschedule. When you do, someone else can be seen instead, helping us continue to cut waiting times.”
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The NHS App has over 40 million registered users, who are able to view their GP health record, order repeat prescriptions and access a range of NHS services to manage their own care.
The survey on NHS appointments was of 2,000 people in England aged 16 or over, carried out by Censuswide on behalf of NHS England.
How to use the NHS App
Firstly, you will need to make sure you have the NHS App on your phone. It can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store if you have an iPhone or from the Google Play Store if you have an Android.
It will ask you to enter your email, create a password, and verify via a six-digit code sent to your phone. Once you have set this up you can go to the settings section in the NHS App to enable notifications.
You must also make sure your contact details are up to date so you can receive important messages about your healthcare. For more information on the app, visit the NHS website here.
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