Only 3% of Blind Users Call the NHS App Fully Accessible, UK Parliamentary Report Finds

By Kaeleb Savon Heck

LONDON, Oct. 31, 2026 — Only 3% of blind and partially sighted people surveyed by a group of British lawmakers said the NHS App is fully accessible, according to a parliamentary report published this week that warns the government's plan to make the app the main "digital front door" to the National Health Service could shut out people with sight loss.

The report, "Accessible Healthcare in a Digital NHS," from the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Eye Health and Visual Impairment, found that 53% of people surveyed rated the app "not accessible" or only "slightly accessible." Half of those who need health information in an accessible format said they "rarely" or "never" receive it that way.

"A door that blind and partially sighted people like myself cannot open is not a front door for everyone," said Marsha de Cordova, the Member of Parliament who chairs the group and who is herself registered blind, according to the optometry publication Optometry Today, published by the Association of Optometrists.

Why this matters

The UK government wants the NHS App to become the main way people reach the health service by 2028, as part of the shift from "analogue to digital" set out in its 10-Year Health Plan. That means more appointments, test results, prescriptions and letters will live inside the app.

For a blind person, an app that does not work with a screen reader is not a minor inconvenience. It can mean not being able to read your own test results, missing an appointment change, or having to hand your phone and your private medical information to someone else. The APPG's report frames this as a patient safety issue, not only a technology one.

What the survey found

The APPG gathered evidence between May and July 2026. That included a survey of 64 people who are blind or partially sighted or who have lived experience of sight loss, and a parliamentary oral evidence session on June 30, chaired by de Cordova, where people with lived experience, clinicians, NHS England representatives, policymakers and accessibility experts testified.

Key findings, as reported by Optometry Today:

• 3% of respondents rated the NHS App fully accessible.
• 53% said it was "not accessible" or only "slightly accessible."
• 46% of those who use the app found it "difficult" or "very difficult" to use.
• 56% said reading letters or documents was one of the hardest parts of using the app.
• 50% of those who need accessible formats "rarely" or "never" receive their health information that way.

The survey is small, and the APPG is a cross-party group of MPs and peers rather than an official government committee, so the findings are best read as a snapshot of user experience rather than a national statistic. But the pattern they describe will be familiar to many screen reader users: the app's menus may work, while the documents inside it, such as scanned letters and PDFs, often do not.

"Only 3% of people who responded to our survey rated the NHS App as fully accessible, and too many told us they still cannot read their own appointment letters or test results without asking someone else for help," de Cordova said. "In 2026, that is not acceptable. Accessibility has to be built in from the start, with blind and partially sighted people co-designing these services."

Six recommendations

The report makes six recommendations, according to a summary published by the charity Patient Safety Learning:

1. Build in accessibility and co-design from the start. Blind and partially sighted people should be involved throughout the design, testing and development of NHS digital services, with mandatory input from them on all NHS-funded digital projects. Ownership should sit jointly with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England's chief digital officer.
2. Set consistent accessibility requirements. Suppliers should have to provide independent accessibility testing before any system is approved for purchase or rollout, with ongoing checks written into contracts.
3. Enforce the Accessible Information Standard. NHS commissioners and providers should have to show that patients' communication needs are identified, recorded, flagged, shared, met and reviewed.
4. Record needs once. Providers, including GP practices and opticians, should use the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag now to record and share sight loss needs, rather than waiting for a future Single Patient Record.
5. Strengthen accountability. Regular independent accessibility audits of the app, its linked services and its suppliers should be carried out and published, and every NHS organization should name a senior person responsible for digital accessibility, with staff training to match.
6. Reduce, not widen, health inequalities. The government should set measurable accessibility targets for the app, guarantee that non-digital options remain available, and fund digital skills and assistive technology training through sight loss charities.

Reaction from the RNIB

Khadija Raza, policy lead at the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), which co-sponsors the APPG, said blind and partially sighted people "have the right to receive information about their health and care in a format they can read and understand."

"However, in practice we know this right is rarely implemented," she said, warning that the consequences "could cause serious risk to health, wellbeing, safety, and privacy."

"The NHS App could be a great tool for digitally enabled blind and partially sighted people if designed accessibly, but non-digital options should be maintained for those who cannot access online services," Raza said. "This would allow blind and partially sighted people to manage their health with the same level of privacy, dignity, and independence as everyone else."

Background: a wider pattern

The NHS findings land in the same week as other reminders that "accessible" technology often falls short in real use. On Oct. 29, the University of Maryland published research on Be My AI, the artificial intelligence photo-description feature in the Be My Eyes app. In a study of 11 blind participants and 418 conversations with the app, researchers found that people typically asked questions of 10 to 20 words, while the app's answers were more than 10 times longer, and some exchanges stretched to 21 back-and-forths. For someone listening to every word through a screen reader, that means sitting through long descriptions to find a single useful detail.

The two studies point at the same problem from different directions. A health app can technically pass an automated checklist and still leave a blind patient unable to read a letter. An AI tool built for blind users can still be tiring to use if it is not designed around how blind people actually listen. In both cases, the people affected say the fix is the same: involve them from the start.

Analysis

The NHS App is not a niche product. It is meant to become the default way millions of people in England manage their care. The APPG's argument is that accessibility cannot be added later, once systems have been bought and rolled out, because by then the hardest problems, such as untagged PDF letters from dozens of hospital systems, are spread across the whole service.

Several of the recommendations are about who is responsible. Today, an inaccessible letter in the app might come from a local hospital's system, a third-party supplier or the national app itself, and it can be hard for a patient to know who to complain to. Named accountable owners, published audits and accessibility requirements written into supplier contracts are designed to close that gap.

The insistence on keeping non-digital options also matters. Not every blind or partially sighted person uses a smartphone or a screen reader confidently, and many older people with sight loss are new to assistive technology. A digital-first plan that removes paper, phone and in-person routes would push those people further away from care.

What's next

• Government response: The APPG is calling on the DHSC and NHS England to act on its six recommendations. Whether ministers formally respond, and how quickly, will be the first test.
• 2028 deadline: The NHS App's planned role as the "digital front door" gives the government roughly two years to fix the problems the report describes.
• Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag: Watch for whether GP practices and opticians begin recording sight loss needs through the flag now, as the report urges.
• Independent audits: The report asks for regular, published accessibility audits of the app and its suppliers, which would give patients and campaigners a way to track progress.

Sources

• Optometry Today (Association of Optometrists), "Accessibility failings in NHS App, APPG report says," Oct. 30, 2026: https://www.aop.org.uk/ot/news/2026/10/30/accessibility-failings-in-nhs-app-appg-report-says
• Patient Safety Learning, summary of "Accessible Healthcare in a Digital NHS: Evidence from the APPG on Eye Health and Visual Impairment on Accessibility, Digital Inclusion and the NHS App," Oct. 29, 2026: https://www.pslhub.org/learn/digital-health-and-care-service-provision/accessible-healthcare-in-a-digital-nhs-evidence-from-the-appg-on-eye-health-and-visual-impairment-on-accessibility-digital-inclusion-and-the-nhs-app-29-october-2026-r14906/
• University of Maryland, Maryland Today, "App's AI 'Eyes' for Blind Users Fall Short, UMD Researchers Find," Oct. 29, 2026: https://today.umd.edu/apps-ai-eyes-for-blind-users-fall-short-umd-researchers-find