New HSE patient app to be rolled out by March after 'very positive' trial

Pregnant women will be the first group to be able to book appointments through the new patient app.

The HSE’s patient app will be available to download by March, with pregnant women the first group able to book appointments on it.

The app was tested with more than 1,000 patients from Christmas week and their feedback has been positive, the HSE said on Thursday. 

The expectation is as the app offers more services, it will eventually give all patients a single place to manage digital health and personal health information. 

They will be able to access services and it will cover social care as well as healthcare.

“We will open the app up to be widely available in app stores in Q1 2025,” a spokesman said.

We released the app before Christmas, inviting a cohort of between 1,000 and 1,500 people to test. We continue to capture feedback from people using the app, which has been very positive to date.

Anyone using this version can store digital medical cards and European Health Insurance Cards. 

Patients can also store a list of their medications.

It will also have vaccine information and links to HSE services as well as self-care supports.

For now, the only patients able to book appointments will be those using the maternity services, but more are expected to be added over time.

“The HSE Health App will give people a simple and secure way to access their health information and information about a range of HSE services,” the spokesman said.

In January 2023, the HSE said a government decision back in 2018 to refuse funding for digital health records until after the new children’s hospital was complete left the HSE struggling to patch up digital networks.

This led to the situation where digital records are only used in maternity hospitals and even then only in a few, such as those in Cork and Kerry.

There is no network of digital records across the acute hospitals, although in Tallaght, the hospital went ahead and installed its own system.

The devastating cyberattack on the HSE in May 2021, however, led to a renewed focus on the slow pace of digital reforms. This app is part of plans set out a new digital health roadmap last year.

Patients in Britain can already use a similar app — the NHS app — to book appointments, order a repeat prescription and see their GP record, among a range of other activities. 

They can also get instant medical advice.