Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ensure that (a) universal lay terminology is used in the NHS app and (b) there is signposting to Lab Tests Online UK to enable patients to interpret their diagnostic results correctly.

The NHS App aims to use clear, universal lay terminology that is easy for the general public to understand. The content follows the National Health Service content style guide, which mandates writing in plain English to a reading age of nine to 11 years old. As part of the delivery of the 10-Year Health Plan, the NHS App will provide an improved and personalised experience for users, empowering them to access key elements of their health conditions like test results, and providing patients with advice and guidance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that will help them to understand their health and make informed choices about what to do next.

We regularly test our content with patients to ensure it is clear and effective. This includes working with users who have access needs, low digital literacy, or are from seldom-heard groups.

This work builds on the current test results feature in the NHS App that is successfully used by millions of people each month to access the results of tests they have conducted with their general practitioner.

There is signposting to Lab Tests Online-UK (LTO-UK) to help patients interpret their diagnostic results, though this may depend on how the patient's general practice (GP) has configured its systems. We currently provide links to LTO-UK for approximately 70 of the most common test types. While the NHS App itself primarily displays results along with any accompanying doctor’s comments or actions, GP systems can have embedded links to LTO-UK alongside the test results, providing a direct route for patients to access reliable information at the point of care.