TL;DRThe UK government will add AI triage to the NHS App to steer patients in England towards GPs, pharmacies, or A&E, reaching 200,000 patients in year one and all users by April 2028. The rollout is part of a GBP 10bn technology overhaul that also includes ambient AI scribes, though health leaders warn the productivity evidence is thin.
The NHS will use AI inside its app to direct patients in England to the right services, the government has announced. The tool will assess symptoms and work out whether someone needs a GP appointment, a pharmacy visit, or a trip to A&E.
The update is expected to reach 200,000 patients over the next year before becoming available to all users by April 2028. It forms part of a £10bn package to overhaul the health service’s technology and data systems.
Ending the so-called 8am scramble for same-day GP appointments was a central promise in Labour’s 2024 manifesto. The government said a trial at Wealden Ridge Medical Partnership in Sussex cut phone queues for GP appointments by 29%, a figure that has not yet been independently published.
Health secretary James Murray, who took the job in May, said he was “certain” the technology would get patients to the right care faster and drive down waiting times. The app move builds on earlier experiments, including OneAdvanced’s sovereign triage model trained on NHS primary-care data and Rapid Health’s Smart Triage, which already lets over a million patients book appointments through the app.
