Neil Gray says he doesn't know why Scotland’s NHS app lags behind England's

Neil Gray, the cabinet secretary for health and social care, admitted he “can’t pretend to know” why Scotland’s NHS app is lagging behind England’s in development.  

Speaking at Holyrood’s Transforming Scotland’s Health conference about the future of Scotland’s health and social care system, Gray made the comment in response to a question from the audience concerning the slow development of the NHS Scotland digital app.  

“It's a good question and I can't pretend to know the answer to that,” said Gray. “Certainly, since I've came into office, I've been keen to make sure that we move as fast as possible in rolling that out.”  

Scotland's national health and social care app, MyCare.scot, is not fully available yet. In England, its NHS app was launched in 2019 after a pilot programme in 2018. Current plans for Scotland's version include a pilot scheme in December in Lanarkshire, with a full rollout of the app scheduled for April 2026.  

“The digital app in England doesn't integrate between health and social care, it's only health-based and we are bringing that together on a health and social care basis,” said Gray. “We've legislated in the care reform board to make it easier for our systems to be sharing our care data so that we can have that better integration to enable the success of the health and social care app.”  

In England, the NHS app is used to order repeat prescriptions, book hospital appointments and view test results. In the Covid-19 pandemic it was also instrumental in managing immunisations, providing users with an online service to prove their vaccination status.  

“There's no secret about the fact that we've been behind England in that regard, that they've moved faster and that we need to catch up,” said Gray. “But I believe that the way that we have developed the app here in Scotland, moving to an integrated health and care app, will be one that will see us moving back ahead and ensuring that people here in Scotland can get access to their appointments, their health records, their services that are available and wider applications that may be available within it.”