NHS rolls out 'Amazon-style' prescription tracking

Millions of patients can now access "Amazon-style" tracking for their prescriptions through the App, the health service has announced. Almost 1,500 high street chemists - including every branch of in England - are now offering the service. It allows patients to check the progress of their prescription and see whether an item is ready to collect or if it has been dispatched by their pharmacy.

The smart phone scheme aims to reduce calls to chemists from people trying to check the status of a prescription. According to NHS England, around 45% of phone calls to community pharmacies are from people chasing prescriptions.

Dr Vin Diwakar, clinical transformation director at NHS England, said: "We know that people want more control over how they manage their healthcare and the new prescription tracking feature in the NHS App offers exactly that.

"You will now get a near real-time update in the app that lets you know when your medicine is ready so you can avoid unnecessary trips or leaving it until the last minute to collect.

"The new -style feature will also help to tackle the administrative burden on pharmacists, so that they can spend more of their time providing health services and advice to patients rather than updates on the status of their prescriptions."

The service due to expand to around 5,000 more pharmacies over the next 12 months, at which point it will cover 60% of England.

The NHS App has 37.4 million registered users, with around 11 million logging on each month.

The app also allows patients to use a barcode to collect their prescription, while the number of repeat prescriptions ordered through the app increased by 40% to 5.5 million between April 2024 and April 2025.

Health Secretary said: "If patients can track the journey of their food shop, they should be able to do the same with their prescriptions.

"By harnessing the power and efficiency of modern tech, we're saving patients time, driving productivity and freeing up hardworking pharmacists to do what they do best - helping patients, not providing status updates."