GP Connect

For health and care staff, GP Connect provides secure access to a patient’s GP record when patients are treated away from their registered GP practice.

GP Connect helps to:

• support safer clinical decisions by making GP information available when it’s needed
• improve continuity of care when patients are treated in other care settings
• reduce delays caused by relying on phone calls or manual information sharing

Note: health and care staff use GP Connect through the clinical or care systems they already work with, rather than through a separate GP Connect service or website.

We are working on allowing patients to access GP Connect – through the NHS or other approved consumer health app, they will be able to:

• view their own care record
• view their prescriptions
• request permission to view all of the above, if not already granted

What GP Connect is not

GP Connect is not:

• used beyond direct patient care
• a replacement for local clinical systems or records
• accessed directly by patients

GP Connect supports the delivery of direct patient care across a range of health and care settings. It is used by authorised professionals and organisations when patients are cared for outside their registered GP practice.

Health and care professionals

GP Connect is used by authorised health and care staff who need access to GP record information to support direct care, such as:

• clinicians working in settings beyond GP practices
• professionals delivering care in community, urgent, or non‑acute settings

Staff use GP Connect through the clinical or care systems provided by their organisation

Organisations providing care

GP Connect is used by organisations involved in delivering direct patient care, including:

• NHS and other health organisations
• social care organisations providing regulated care

Organisations must meet national requirements and use approved systems to enable access for their staff.

Care settings where GP Connect is commonly used

GP Connect is used in a range of care settings, including:

• care homes
• community and mental health services
• urgent and emergency care
• pharmacies
• hospices and social care settings

Not all organisations or care settings use all GP Connect services.

This section explains how GP Connect is made available to organisations and systems, and what that means in practice. Use is subject to national requirements and approved use for direct patient care.

Note: You cannot sign up to GP Connect directly. It is part of approved clinical or care software, not a separate service with its own registration or login.

• Access for health and care organisations
  Health and care organisations use GP Connect only through the clinical or care systems provided by their suppliers. Use depends on the care setting, intended purpose, and the systems in place within the organisation. GP Connect must be used in line with national policy and only for approved direct patient care. Not all services are available in all care settings or for all uses. Social care organisations that are selecting or changing systems can explore assured solutions for digital social care record.
• Access for system suppliers and delivery partners
  System suppliers and delivery partners must complete national onboarding and assurance processes before their products can use GP Connect. Technical documentation, APIs and onboarding guidance are available through our API and integration catalogue and related supplier guidance, which explain integration requirements and how services are made available to health and care organisations.

Who is included

GP Connect provides access to patient records held by their GP. For a given patient's record to be available via GP Connect, the following must be true:

• the patient must be registered with a GP in England
• the GP's software must support GP Connect
• the GP must have gone live with GP Connect
• the patient must not have opted out of GP Connect

Note that some suppliers and GPs might be live with a subset of the GP Connect products.

What information is held for each patient

For details of information held for each patient, see Appendix 2 of the GP Connect transparency notice.

GP Connect for providers

Providing access to patient records via GP Connect is mandated for all GP practices in England.

Accordingly, it is also mandated for GP software suppliers as part of the GP IT Futures framework, and will be mandated as part of the upcoming Digital Services for Integrated Care framework that replaces it.

GP Connect for consumers

Using GP Connect to access GP records from other care settings isn't usually mandated, however:

• it might be mandated by specific commercial frameworks
• even if not mandated, it is strongly recommended as it can help improve patient outcomes

GP Connect consists of a number of individual 'products', each of which can be used independently:

The status of each of the GP Connect products is as follows:

'FoT' refers to First of Type, an iterative cycle that facilitates the development, self-assessment, assurance and live deployment of supplier systems consuming GP Connect products.

GP Connect is a silver service, meaning it is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and supported from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays.

*The GP Connect Patient Facing APIs are currently only available for New Market Entrant suppliers as data providers, and are in use with the NHS App as the consumer. At the time of writing (July 2025), we are not onboarding any additional consumer suppliers to use these APIs.