Calls to scrap Scotland's £17m NHS MyCare app after only 22,000 downloads
Scotland's £17m NHS MyCare app has been downloaded by only about 22,000 people since June, prompting calls to scrap it in favour of the English NHS app.
Politicians have called for Scotland’s £17 million NHS MyCare app to be scrapped after figures showed it has been downloaded by only about 22,000 people since its launch in June — roughly 0.5 per cent of Scotland’s 4.7 million adults.
The data, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, contrasts sharply with the English NHS app, launched in 2018, which has about 42 million users and is used by nearly 90 per cent of adults in England.
A report co-written this month by Alex Neil, the former SNP health secretary, recommended Scotland adopt the English version rather than “trying to reinvent the wheel”, adding: “Not everything needs a Saltire added to it.”
An internal government report revealed SNP ministers had rejected the proven English app partly because of the “political optics of adopting an English solution”.
Dame Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s health spokeswoman, said: “The SNP’s incompetence has left Scotland trailing when it comes to successfully implementing an NHS app.” Miles Briggs, the Scottish Conservative health spokesman, called it “an expensive SNP gimmick that cannot deliver the basics”.
A Scottish government spokesman said: “Our rollout plan was always to start small and scale up. It’s inaccurate to suggest the NHS England app could be used in Scotland given we have an entirely different IT infrastructure.”
The app currently shows patients little more than their CHI number, vaccination record, allergies and home address, and users have reported login problems and largely negative app-store reviews.
Sources
- The Times: Calls to scrap £17m NHS MyCare app after only 22,000 downloads
- UKAuthority: MyCare.scot app goes nationwide
- Nursing Times: App launched for Scottish NHS but without booking function
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