The health service has announced a new partnership covering library facilities around the country, through which librarians will provide visitors with support and advice in using NHS digital health platforms

The NHS is to work with libraries across England to help encourage people to make use of the NHS app and other digital health tools.

NHS England – working with the National Health Literacy Partnership – this week announced a new scheme in which, beginning from October, libraries will be equipped with toolkits and guidance. The initiative also aims to provide “librarians with the right tools and support [to] be able to play a key part in helping people to use the NHS App and NHS.UK to better understand and manage their health”.

The health service has already begun working with “a small number of libraries across England to support people to get started with the NHS App”.

This includes facilities local to the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (ICB) area. Libraries in this region currently run “digital cafés…  for those who want to use the NHS App but need a bit of extra help getting started”.

These sessions are overseen by the ICB’s digital access lead, Marta Fischer, who said that attends find the app “really easy to use once I talk them through it [and] find being able to see test results and their records online helpful”.

She added: “Sometimes people presume all those over a certain age can’t use technology, but many of the patients I work with already use apps and appreciate how easy the NHS App makes it to order their repeat prescriptions online and help them keep track of their healthcare.”

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The new nationwide engagement with libraries is intended to build upon work already taking place “with the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and public library colleagues, where we have trained 178 health literacy trainers in NHS libraries and run health literacy pilots at 14 public library sites”, according to NHS England chief knowledge officer Louise Goswami.

“Through these pilots we learned that people were happy to be shown how to use NHS.uk by public library staff, so this phased rollout through public libraries will help even more people to access and make the most of their health information online,” she added.

Her colleague, NHS England chief information officer – and former librarian – John Quinn, said that “public libraries are at the heart of our communities and offer a significant opportunity to reach those who face barriers when it comes to accessing their health information online”.

“The NHS App has more than 34 million registered users and we want to ensure no-one is excluded from using this service,” he added. “My first profession was a librarian, and it was amazing training for the role I do today. Librarians have always been at the forefront of providing services to communities and getting information to people at the right time.”

According to the NHS, people aged 66 and upwards are “the most active users of the NHS App”. Of the five million users in this age group, about half used the app during the three-month period from March to May 2024, representing about a fifth of the overall tally of 12 million users during this timeframe.

About a third of users in their thirties and one in four users in their 20s accessed the app during this period, the NHS indicated.

A total of 11.6 million repeat prescriptions were issued via the app during the spring months, more than a quarter of which for pension-age patients.

In a press release, the NHS said: “New and innovative features continue to be rolled out onto the NHS App to help patients access convenient and high-quality care when and where they need it. Patients in many parts of the country are now able to view and manage their hospital appointments on the app, and many GP practices are now sending NHS App notifications to patients with appointment reminders and other messages relating to their care.”