Primary care bulletin - 12 March 2026

Online consultation and SMS platforms – approved options and next steps

NHS North West London has approved the continuation of centrally funded online consultation and SMS messaging platforms for GP practices across north west London.

These platforms are now core infrastructure supporting patient access, clinical triage and communication. Continuing ICB funding ensures consistent digital access across north west London while enabling coordinated procurement and system-wide value for money.

NHS North West London will fund approved online consultation and SMS platform licences for a further two-year period from July 2026, ensuring continuity of provision across the system.

Approved platform options:
Following development of a core clinical, technical, interoperability and accessibility specification, the ICB intends to procure and fund a limited range of compliant solutions.

Subject to completion of procurement, the platforms expected to be included are:

Accurx
Blinx PACO
Patchs.

These products were assessed against system-wide requirements including clinical functionality, integration, governance standards and health equity considerations such as accessibility and translation capability.

Practices will be invited to express a preference from this approved range during the engagement period.

Supplier demonstration sessions will be arranged to support practices in making an informed choice.

Practices remain free to use alternative platforms if they wish, however, ICB funding will only apply to platforms procured through the approved gCloud framework.

Transition and support
The ICB will fund suppliers costs to coordinate transition support, including:

implementation and onboarding support
data migration support (where required)
staff training
early-life support following go-live.

Important Information on SMS costs

The current arrangement covers platform licence costs only.

SMS usage costs (fragment costs) are not included within this arrangement and are currently subject to a wider system review. The future approach to SMS usage costs will be communicated once this review has been completed.

Timeline

March 2026 – practice engagement and supplier demonstrations
April-May 2026 – procurement and contract award
June 2026 – mobilisation and onboarding
July 2026 – new contracts go live.

All existing ICB funded online consultations and SMS contracts will remain in place until 30 June 2026 to ensure continuity of service.

Further communications regarding product selection, demonstration sessions and engagement events will follow shortly.

An FAQ document (PDF) has also been prepared.

Please contact the digital transformation team for further updates via Digital First.

Submit in-progress Universal Care Plan forms - editable access

In late spring, editable access for Londoners via the NHS login service is due to go live. This will enable members of the public to start a care plan and edit selected personal information in real time within the UCP, either via the NHS App or online login.  

As part of this change, the option to save information as ‘in progress’ for six forms will be removed. This is required to enable the individual to be able to co-author appropriate sections of their care plan enabling greater involvement.

To prepare for this, we will be removing the functionality to save non-clinical forms ‘in progress’ in early March.

Once the new functionality goes live, information saved as ‘in progress’ in these six forms will be removed from the system.

Your action: please use this time to review and submit any ‘in progress’ forms to avoid any information being removed.

The six forms are:

personal Information
personal and professional contacts
communication and accessibility
what matters to them thinking ahead
daily activities and support needs.

Instructions on how to do this have been prepared in a document (PDF). A confirmed date for the removal of this functionality will be shared shortly.

Imperial's pre-pregnancy counselling service is now on eRS

Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust's pre-pregnancy counselling service is now available on eRS under the main specialty Gynaecology.

This service is for patients who are not pregnant, but who are planning pregnancy and have pre-existing medical conditions, or for patients who have experienced medical complications in a previous pregnancy such as HELLP syndrome or early onset pre-eclampsia.

A letter (PDF) provides further details.

New NHS campaign to help reduce medicine waste in London - please share materials

This March we are launching a campaign to help people only order the medicines they need and reduce avoidable waste. Nationally unused medicines cost the NHS an estimated £300 million each year and in north west London alone there is around £465,000 in potential savings. By supporting patients to check what they already have at home before reordering and only request what they need, we can help ensure NHS resources are used effectively.

Please support the campaign by sharing the key messages and materials across your networks and encouraging responsible ordering within your practice. If your practice or pharmacy would like printed copies of some campaign materials, please email nhsnwl.communications.nwl@nhs.net to arrange this.

Education and training