Patient Access Reviews 

I only regret that I cant give this dreadful company less than one star. Their log-in procedure fails constantly, don't bother contacting their "IT"people , their idea of help is to sent a cut and paste email (almost a week later) with the instructions of "How To Login" - patronising crap, covering up the fact that they obviously have server and/or bandwidth issues - no doubt related to their profit margins ! A company THIS BAD could only exist in failing Britain.

The Patient Access website is incredibly frustrating to use. The entire sign-in process is a headache; even with the correct information, access is often denied. In the name of security, they've made the system nearly unusable. It’s not user-friendly at all—even with my media expertise, I found it challenging to navigate. Such a system is unfair to elders and those with less digital experience.

The new verification process is incomprehensible. I am now unable to order my repeat prescriptions because of it's clunky and unworkable 2stage verification. Is this the future? God help us

Logins are broken yet again. SMS verification (which is only the illusion of security anyway, so all the inconvenience is for no benefit) is either not sending out texts at all, or when it does, it doesn't accept its own codes.

If it fails to work more than three times, it locks you out, and also welcomes you back to its world of brokenness with a Google ReCAPTCHA; which, apart from being horribly ableist, is pretty worrying on the basis that I don't want Google anywhere near my medical information.

On the occasions it does let you in, it seems to be more interested in trying to sell expensive private healthcare than providing an actual service. The service it does provide is largely dysfunctional, poorly organised, slow and unreliable.

The entire experience is frustrating and unpleasant, and the last thing anybody needs when they require healthcare.

I've written to them several times about all of the above. On the rare occasion any response has been forthcoming it's invariably automatically generated or dismissive, and in both cases fails to actually address the problems. But mostly they're simply too haughty to bother.

I needed to update my details in Patient Access having transferred from another practice.

Despite having my new details to hand i cannot login and will shortly rung out of medication.

Today is the 3rd day and no one has contacted me.

I am immuno suppressed and felt sure someone would return my call in a couple of days.

Very disappointing and lacklustre service

The "one-off" PIN concept when linking to a GP in Scotland is just appalling. If it errors out when attempting to find your GP, the PIN has been used and is dead to the App. Only option is to go back to your GP for another registration letter and new PIN! I'm on my 3rd letter :-( and still no link for repeat prescriptions Who thought that was a good idea? Here is an idea - change the code so the PIN persists until a successful link. That way I can reuse to problem solve myself. SO much extra work for GP receptionists too!

Impossible to log in. Wouldn't recognise my password on a desktop, won't accept the code it sent on the app. Pointless waste of time.

Great app but seems to direct me to patients know best which via Apple download-I have apple devices-offers me them holding my passwords the app ,3 days for nothing then a fee.
So what’s going on??
Well I did get on to patient access by ticking not at this time .Rather a strange state of affairs.Does the NHS know what’s going on with verification providers jumping it seems on a band wagon.It also seems 3 health authorities are teaming up with patient knows best including my own.

Used this app for years. My daughter has complex medical condition requiring many repeat prescriptions. Until last week it was excellent. Now for no apparent reason it does not allow me access. Get to the hello page then message that can’t access records from practice and to try again later. Tried all the fixes on website to no avail. No one to phone so have messaged technical but no reply as yet. NHS practice advises me that many patients affected but nothing to do with them. I am in Scotland.

So unreliable it generates high levels of stress. Rather than “enhancing” the app with new features such as giving patronising advice, concentrate on making the app functional and reliable!

Who ever manages this program have ruined it by constant changes ... Latest brainwave to remove "note to your Doctor box" ... So now if you take a drug like Warfarin where you adjust your prescription requirements to reduce waste, I now can't do it through the prescription request ... Put the "note box" back before Patient Access becomes redundant

Internal Server Error.
Again and again and again.

Totally useless and hopeless system. Doesn't warrant even one star. The authenticator app code doesn't work so getting into the system is impossible.

total joke trying to log in to my account keeps throwing me out

Not accepting their own codes. Not the first time it’s done this. Tried to get in via nhs, but that won’t work either. Definitely easier to view my Bank Account

Patient Access is the worst system it's been my misfortune to use. Clunky, hard to access, impossible to contact a human operator to try to fix.

Also, I note some comments here saying "don't blame the NHS, it's not their system". It may not be, but it was someone in the NHS (my GP) that initially pushed me to use it. Also, as I'm in Scotland I can't use an NHS log-in (it tries to force me to use some 3rd party 2FA app) whereas patients in England can. So I'll blame the Scottish NHS for that.

In principle I don't want to blame the NHS, but the solution is in their hands:
The NHS should cut all ties with Patient Access and have a simple system run centrally that all patients can use to log in. That would have a ton of work at doctor's surgeries, reduce non-attendances at appointments, etc.
Get it sorted.

For reasons way beyond me the prescription request/reorder system is no longer functional. There is no coordination between the software, the surgery and the pharmacist; in fact it is now more efficient to get prescription requests from the surgery.

I'm very old and not that computer literate; a nap to me is what I have on the sofa most afternoons. I can't use this.

I have written to Patient Access three times recently regarding the problems caused by their introduction of Third Party Access (TPA),
I also referred them to the 200 plus complaints on this website.

I asked them why it was introduced as existing security seemed more than adequate. Was consideration given to the problems its complexities it could cause to the majority of users who were not experts in computer
technology; Were there any plans to withdraw TPA.

I am sorry to say I have had not one reply or response from Patient Access, and no doubt readers will draw thir own conclusions for the cause of this discourteousy. They seem determined to make things as difficult as they can for their users as they do not display a phone number anywhere. This ensures that their staff are not disturbed by those pesky users making phone calls

I am forwarding my correspondence to Wes Streeting the Health Minister, and also referring him to this website, so that he is aware of how Patient Access, whom I assume receive funding from the NHS, appear to have so little interest in the problems they have caused to so many patients.

UPDATE 7 NOVEMBER

Email to Streeting apparently passed to some department who told me I might get a reply in 28 days.
I wonder if i will eventually get a meaningful reply, but I fear if anything eventually comes at all it will be from
some under-employed civil servant working from home who migh stir himself/herself to cobble together a cut and paste response.

I have used Patient Access to order repeat prescriptions via a web browser, successfully for many years. Problems as reported by Crockery Peeps on 17th. September, are the same as the problems I have 2 weeks later! Nothing has improved, the help provided dose not state that the problems are from them and the things they suggest you try are pointless . No indication is given when or if it will be fixed, in the meantime it is a annoying complete wast of time.

Crockery Peeps 17th September 2024
Since multi-factor authentication was introduced months ago, I have been unable to access my data which I had been doing successfully since joining in 2020. None of the instructions sent by the so-called ‘support team’ actually work. It took weeks to get a reply from them and I had to find my own solution to actually get back into the app at all. On doing so it’s forced me to use the NHS app to access my data (the NHS app does work for this) but on registering the Patient Access app with the Authenticator app, Patient Access can be accessed by me but guess what? My patient data cannot be accessed via the app because it now tells me the app is not linked to my GP services (whereas it was before this ludicrous MFA process was added). What a joke. Sack the apps developers and Head of IT because you have rendered this app inaccessible and pointless. Well done - you have wasted many customers time and have failed in your one purpose.