NHS App ‘ping and book’ breast screening pilot launches

NHS England has launched a ‘ping and book’ pilot project which uses the NHS App to invite participants to their breast screening appointments.

Between December 2024 and February 2025, three breast screening offices (BSOs) in Milton Keynes, Southwest London and Dorset sent appointment details via the app to 150 pilot participants.

The pilots concluded in March 2025 and the team are now having review sessions with each BSO site.

In a blog post, published on 14 April 2025, Kate Sheridan, digital screening communications lead at NHSE, said: “The results of this pilot will be used to inform further research and testing, with a specific focus on the accessibility, inclusion and equity aspects of digital channels.

“A wider rollout to more BSOs is planned, with the lessons learned from delivering digital-first invitations helping to determine how to approach communications to breast screening participants around appointment reminders and test results.

“Insights will also be shared across other programmes undergoing digital transformation including bowel cancer and cervical screening.”

If participants did not have the NHS App or did not open the message, they received a text message. A letter was sent through the post if neither of the first two messages were received.

While the pilots were still in progress, the NHS Notify monitoring capabilities indicated that participants successfully received messages through at least one of the three delivery methods and that feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive”, Sheridan said.

Each year in the UK, around 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 3,300 are diagnosed with cervical cancer.

NHS cancer screening programmes can help to diagnose cancer or risk of cancer earlier and improve the likelihood of successful treatment.

The breast cancer and cervical cancer programmes send more than 25 million invitations, reminders and results letters to patients by post each year, costing £14.7 million annually, but using the NHS App in conjunction with the NHS Notify digital delivery system will reduce these costs, Sheridan explained.

“While better digital services are important, it is clear that paper-based channels are still needed by some people and can impact them attending their appointment.

“There needs to be a commitment to delivering these to those who need a paper format,” she added.

Amanda Pritchard, chief executive at NHSE, first announced the rollout of the service in November 2024, which she said would “revolutionise access to cancer screening for women and help ensure everyone eligible can make the most of these life-saving services at the touch of a button”.

NHSE said that the service will be expanded to cervical screening in spring 2025 and that from early 2026 “millions of women” will be able to book breast screening appointments through the NHS App.