Nearly one in four people say they have missed an NHS appointment because they forgot or arrived too late, a new survey finds. To tackle missed appointments, NHS England has launched the “Tap the NHS App” campaign asking users to enable push notifications so they receive reminders and can cancel or rearrange appointments, freeing slots for other patients.
The Censuswide survey of 2,000 adults in England found 12% had forgotten an appointment and 11% had arrived too late. Separate NHS figures for 2025 show patients did not attend 16 million GP appointments. No-shows made up about 1 in 23 appointments (4.3%)—the equivalent of a full day of missed appointments at every GP practice in England each month. In total the NHS arranged 376 million GP appointments in 2025, 8.4 million more (2.3%) than in 2024.
The campaign highlights how turning on notifications in the NHS App can help people remember appointments and, if necessary, cancel or rearrange them so others can be offered the time. Advertising will run on pharmacy bags, radio and social media. Users are also encouraged to order repeat prescriptions and use the app’s appointment tools rather than visiting practices in person.
Last year the app gained an Amazon-style prescription tracking feature that updates users on progress and when prescriptions are ready; that service is currently available at about 2,000 pharmacies in England.
Dr Amanda Doyle, NHS England’s National Director for Primary Care and Community Services, said people often have genuine reasons for missing appointments but urged patients to let services know where possible so the appointment can be used by someone else. She encouraged NHS App users to turn on reminders and make use of the app’s other features.
Health Innovation Minister Dr Zubir Ahmed said busy lives make it easy to forget or need to reschedule appointments and repeated the call for people to enable app notifications so appointments can be rearranged for others and waiting times reduced.
ONS data show more people find it easy to contact their GP online: 75.2% of adults said it was easy to contact their practice, up from 71.6% a year earlier. The NHS App has more than 40 million registered users who can view their GP record, order repeat prescriptions and access other NHS services. Users can switch on notifications and update contact details in the app’s settings to make sure they receive important messages.
