Faccini House Surgery supports patients with NHS App use

Since May 2024, Faccini House Surgery in Morden has been hosting regular sessions in its waiting area where Health Navigators volunteers work alongside practice staff to help patients register for and use the NHS App while they are already at the GP surgery, turning routine visits into a chance to sort out future digital access.

Volunteer Centre Sutton reports that more than 100 patients at Faccini House have already had one-to-one help from these trained volunteers, who sit with people on their phones or tablets to show them how to request repeat prescriptions, look up test results and manage referrals without needing to ring the practice reception.

National figures set the local project in context: NHS England’s 2023–24 transformation and innovation delivery update states that 33.6 million adults in England had downloaded the NHS App by December 2023, representing over three quarters of adults and making schemes such as the Morden sessions one route into a service that is now central to everyday primary care.

Evidence submitted to Parliament’s Health and Social Care Committee in 2023 highlighted that use of the NHS App is uneven, warning that without staff support and non-digital alternatives there is a risk of widening gaps between patients who are confident online and those who are not, so the Health Navigators presence at a high-street practice is being presented locally as a way to keep access more even.

The Sutton project also draws on national arguments about time and workload: NHS Digital estimates cited in the Health Navigators report suggest that every repeat prescription fulfilled through the NHS App saves a GP around three minutes, while a British Medical Association analysis published in December 2022 calculated that inadequate IT systems waste more than 13.5 million hours of doctors’ time each year in England, roughly equivalent to 8,000 full-time doctors.

Sessions run not only at Faccini House Surgery but in other community locations across Sutton, including assisted living housing, leisure centres and libraries, so the same volunteers who sit with patients in the Morden practice are also helping residents who rarely visit a GP building to set up the app and carry out simple health checks such as blood pressure and BMI in familiar neighbourhood spaces.

20 November 2025 12:37 By London Health News Desk