The fresh reminder comes as 16 million were called out across the country
NHS bosses have sent out an alert to the public to switch on a specific feature if they have the NHS app installed on their phones. The message comes as millions are being called out in an NHS poll found for missing their appointments because they chose not to get reminders.
The new campaign suggests people enable “push alerts” so they can be sent reminders or can reschedule for another time, with the aim of freeing up millions of appointments for others. A survey of 2,000 patients in England found that one in four people have missed a health appointment, and 11% have arrived too late.
Patients did not attend 16 million GP appointments in 2025, with no-shows for one in 23 appointments (4.3%), NHS England said. This works out to an entire day of missed appointments at every GP practice in England every month.
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.
“It’s fantastic to see that GPs provided more than eight million extra appointments for their patients in 2025, and I hope this new campaign will help increase that number even more in 2026. I’d encourage all NHS app users to make the most of what the app has to offer so they never forget an appointment.”
The NHS app has more than 40 million registered users. It also lets people order repeat prescriptions as well as read notes and documents about their health.
The new campaign is called Tap the NHS App. People can download the app for free in the Apple App Store or Google Play – click on the link that matches your device.
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In other health news, millions have been warned not to ignore symptoms of a condition which leaves ‘40% of adults at risk in March’. According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), millions of adults will be lacking in vitamin D at this time of year.
This can be dangerous in the long run, potentially leading to bone damage, including rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults. The UK does not get enough natural sunlight between October and March for our bodies to naturally absorb what we need.
For this reason, the NHS recommends that everyone take daily vitamin D supplements and watch out for the subtle but serious warning signs of a deficiency. These are listed in the report here.
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