[4] All GPs in England are required to give their patients access to their health record via the NHS app.
[5] Jeremy Hunt laid down eight "challenges" for the development in September 2017: The app was piloted from October 2018, and plans were to roll it out across England in December 2018.
It was released for testing in September 2018 in Liverpool, Staffordshire, Redditch and Bromsgrove, Wyre Forest and South Worcestershire, Wolverhampton, Hastings and Rother, and Bristol, North Somerset and Gloucestershire.
Initially, it would offer symptom checking and triage; appointment booking; repeat prescription ordering; access to patient records; national data opt-out; and organ donation preference.
Later development includes plans to link up with the NHS e-Referral Service to allow patients to book hospital or clinic appointments.
[13] After the establishment in early 2019 of NHSX as a central IT department for the NHS, chief executive Matthew Gould stated that the app should not have any more features, but should be a platform allowing "other people innovate on top of it".