Wales launches identity verification service, opens ‘digital front door’ to NHS

Wales is getting the new Welsh Identity Verification Service as the government re-launches the NHS Wales app.

Speaking at Wales’ first NHS Digital Summit, the Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing Sarah Murphy set out a 12-month roadmap for the bilingual app (English and Welsh).

“In the coming months, people will be able to track their treatment waiting times, manage hospital appointments all from their phone or device,” Murphy said. “This is just the beginning of our digital transformation, as we work towards creating a digital front door to our NHS and social care services.”

As the app is upgraded in the months ahead, new functions will include the ability for people to track their place on an NHS waiting list, view hospital appointments, and for patients a range of tools to help manage health while waiting for surgery.

The new Welsh Identity Verification Service will allow people across Wales, who don’t have government-issued photo ID, to verify their identity at their general practitioner (GP) practice to register for the NHS Wales app. Those who have government-issued photo ID can use the online NHS Log-in service to register for the NHS Wales app.

NHS login was developed by NHS England as a national citizen identity platform. It enables people to prove their identity before they can use their NHS login to access the NHS Wales app.

Along with this, the Welsh government issued standards to GPs on the identity verification process, identity authentication and authorisation and how they should be performed. In the letter to GPs, it was mentioned that re-verification or re-authentication may be revisited in later versions to the digital service, including authenticated access solutions.

Transformative year for UK digital health service

2025 is seen as a transformative year for the NHS, with the NHS App being a significant part of it. According to polling commissioned by TBI and conducted by Deltapoll, the British public are in favor, with three-quarters of those surveyed saying they’d welcome the use of digitized and anonymized health records by the NHS if it provided faster, safer and more efficient care as a benefit. A majority (60 percent) of dissatisfied NHS users believe better use of technology could enhance services and the majority are willing to share anonymized data to achieve this, via Tony Blair Institute (TBI).

In Scotland however, that nation’s version of the NHS app has been dubbed a “national embarrassment.” Those were the words of Dr. Iain Morrison, chairman of BMA Scotland’s GP committee, as quoted in The Sunday Times, who was commenting on the slowness of progress in implementing the NHS Scotland app. A tender for parts of the implementation went live at the end of February while a senior Scottish government official said that once the ball is rolling, things could be built relatively quickly, with Scotland learning from England’s mistakes. For example, NHS England somehow managed to spend £10 billion ($13.27 billion) on an initial less-than-successful attempt to install its system.

The English NHS App launched in 2019 as the “digital front door” to the National Health Service in England enabling digital access to GP appointment booking, repeat prescriptions, and patient access to records. It was a timely introduction. During the Covid-19 pandemic the app allowed for vaccination certification, and according to a study published earlier this year in the journal BMC Medicine, the COVID Pass proved particularly useful along with core features like prescription ordering. The NHS chose iProov for its biometric facial authentication to improve users’ remote onboarding experience on Android and iOS.

The “Qualitative evaluation of the implementation and national roll-out of the NHS App in England” found that NHS staff valued the app as forming core NHS infrastructure in the long-term, even if this wasn’t recognized initially. The study concluded that ongoing work is needed to ensure the app’s potential since it remains a “complex innovation in a shifting landscape.”

A significant challenge is low engagement rates, with only around a third of people saying that they have used the NHS App, according to TBI polling, although there are over 33 million registered users. But the potential is there.

In an interview with Wired, then-shadow health secretary Wes Streeting pointed out the Labour party’s plan is patient data. “General practice data is key to unlocking better population health outcomes,” he said. The NHS App could help the government in its aim of shifting from treatment to prevention. With Labour sweeping into power in Britain’s general election last summer, Streeting now has the power to enact his vision as health secretary, although that’s always easier said than done.

Article Topics

digital government  |  digital identity  |  healthcare  |  identity verification  |  mobile app  |  NHS App  |  patient identification  |  UK  |  Wales