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Armed Forces Covenant Reports

Armed Forces Covenant annual reports are an official MOD evidence series for NHS App continuation and/or adoption in the Defence Medical Command (DMedC) / Defence Primary Healthcare (DPHC) context. This page separates direct NHS App evidence from wider MOD digital-health material so feature pages can cite the relevant strand without repeating the whole report-series reading.

Evidence Scope

The GOV.UK collection is the stable annual-report index for the series. The current source set now covers the 2012 to 2025 annual reports, plus the 2014 annual-report update.

Read the report series in three layers:

  • NHS App-specific evidence: direct references to NHS App access, functions, or support issues.
  • Programme CORTISONE / MOD digital health: named CORTISONE material and adjacent MOD digital-health work, especially medical-record transfer and DPHC/NHS continuity. Preserve the source wording: the 2025 report uses Op CORTISONE, while earlier annual-report references use Programme CORTISONE.
  • Wider interoperability and patient-record context: earlier health identifiers, NHS Digital data matching, Defence Medical Information Service / Programme language, and MOD/NHS information sharing.

The current review found one direct NHS App annual-report reference: a 2024 appointment-booking access issue for a source-defined Defence Medical Services (DMS) primary-healthcare cohort. A 2026-06-21 recheck of the 2025 annual report did not identify a direct NHS App, under-13 appointment-booking, or resolution follow-up signal. The CORTISONE name appears in the reviewed annual-report set from 2020 onward. Before that, the report series uses adjacent language around Defence Medical Information Service / Programme, medical-record transfer, NHS Digital data matching, electronic health records, CHI identifiers, and MOD/NHS information sharing. Later GOV.UK material outside the annual-report series uses mixed Programme Cortisone / Programme CORTISONE wording.

NHS App-Specific Evidence

Report Signal class Relevant evidence Use in this wiki Limits
2024 NHS App access / appointment booking Records an NHS App appointment-booking access issue for patients registered with DMS primary healthcare. The source identifies the affected cohort as children under 13 and places the issue alongside wider DPHC/NHS continuity concerns. Treat as direct evidence that DMS / DPHC registration can affect at least one NHS App appointment-booking route. Feature pages should cite this as a narrow sub-case and link back here for the report-series context. Do not generalise this source to adults, all children, all dependants, all proxy users, all appointments, referrals, or waiting-list visibility. Resolution status and root cause remain open.
2025 Annual-report follow-up check The current recheck found no direct NHS App, under-13 appointment-booking, or resolution follow-up signal in the 2025 annual report. Keep the 2024 issue open rather than treating silence in the next annual report as resolution. Absence of a follow-up in the annual report is not proof that the issue remains unresolved operationally; direct MOD, NHS, service-owner, GP-system, or test evidence is still required.

Programme CORTISONE / MOD Digital Health

Report Digital-health item Relevant evidence NHS App relevance Limits
2020 Programme CORTISONE / record transfer Records concern about the long-standing commitment to improve medical-record transfer, and describes Programme CORTISONE as supporting connectivity to the NHS and transfer of Service leaver medical records to a new GP practice. Establishes the CORTISONE label inside the same broad records-transfer problem space that can affect NHS App continuation and/or adoption analysis. Does not mention the NHS App or prove patient-facing app enablement.
2021 Programme CORTISONE / electronic records and triage Records additional Programme CORTISONE funding, electronic transfer of medical records, records being made available to NHS clinicians, and Defence Primary Healthcare digital triage. Supports the DPHC/NHS digital-health context for continuation and/or adoption. Does not define NHS account, NHS App, Personal Demographics Service (PDS), Organisation Data Service (ODS), GP Connect PFS, Electronic Prescription Service (EPS), or e-RS integration.
2022 Programme CORTISONE / MOD-NHS linkage Records concern that Programme CORTISONE delays prevent transfer of Service medical records to the NHS, and says the programme should link MOD medical information services with NHS services across the UK and support medical-history transition to GPs. Connects DPHC-to-NHS record transition with GP registration continuity, which may affect GP-linked digital services. This is transition and interoperability evidence, not direct NHS App feature evidence.
2023 Programme CORTISONE / DMS transformation Describes Programme CORTISONE as the digital enabler for Defence Medical Services transformation, with a long-term aim of digital transfer of medical records from DMS to the NHS. It also records overseas electronic child health-record support. Shows that family, child, DPHC Overseas [DPHC(O)], and DMS-to-NHS record issues are broader than the 2024 NHS App access issue. Does not prove NHS App availability for adults, children, dependants, or DPHC(O) cohorts.
2024 DPHC/NHS continuity and record transfer Records patient-record tracing concerns when moving out of Defence Primary Healthcare into NHS provision or devolved administrations, delays for some families returning from overseas, and continuing MOD-to-NHS medical-record transfer delays. Places the direct NHS App access issue in a wider DPHC/NHS continuity setting. Use the NHS App-specific row above for the direct app claim; do not convert these wider continuity findings into app-feature conclusions.
2025 Op CORTISONE / Programme CORTISONE strand Uses the heading Op CORTISONE and describes significant progress within "the programme" for the electronic healthcare record, including plans to connect MOD medical records with NHS systems, Project Mercury, dental capability, and Defence Medical Information Capability Programme (DMICP) retirement. Treat Op CORTISONE as the 2025 source wording for the same CORTISONE programme evidence strand unless a later source distinguishes a separate operation. It keeps the broader continuity and digital integration issue live after the 2024 NHS App access signal. Does not contain a direct NHS App reference in the current source review; timelines, implementation status, and naming are time-sensitive.

Wider Interoperability and Patient-Record Context

Report Signal class Relevant evidence NHS App relevance Limits
2012 Health identifiers Records extended use of Community Health Index numbers as patient identifiers for eligible Armed Forces personnel in Scotland, supporting access to screening programmes. Shows early health-identifier continuity evidence, not app evidence. Scotland-specific; no NHS App, NHS account, NHS login, CORTISONE, or GP Connect evidence.
2013 General digital-health / interoperability Records former-service GP registration and NHS-record context, CHI numbers for serving personnel in Scotland, information sharing between NHS Scotland and MOD, IT links with NHS England for commissioning, and telehealth links for Scottish veterans' prosthetics services. Shows digital and information-sharing concerns before the later medical-record-transfer programme language. Mostly veteran, Scotland, commissioning, and prosthetics context; not NHS App feature evidence.
2014 Pre-CORTISONE MOD/NHS records Records MOD/NHS England work so NHS GPs know veteran status and can access military healthcare records; states a goal to transfer medical records between Defence Medical Services and UK Health Services through the future Defence Medical Information Service programme. Establishes a pre-CORTISONE records-transfer lineage relevant to later DPHC/NHS continuity analysis. The report does not use the CORTISONE name and does not define patient-facing app access.
2014 update General DPHC context Records the new Defence Primary Healthcare context and Defence / National Rehabilitation Centre work. Useful for DPHC context only. No direct NHS App, CORTISONE, or digital-health implementation signal found in the update review.
2015 Pre-CORTISONE MOD/NHS records Records GP access to veterans' medical records, automatic medical summaries sent when Service leavers register with a GP, GMS1 veteran-status changes, service-family codes in medical records, JPA-to-CHI electronic synchronisation in Scotland, and the future Defence Medical Information Programme. Adds concrete GP-registration and medical-summary continuity evidence that may affect GP-linked digital-service analysis. Mostly transition-to-veteran and Scotland-specific evidence; no direct NHS App evidence.
2016 Pre-CORTISONE MOD/NHS records Repeats the future Defence Medical Information Programme commitment to transfer medical records between DMS and UK Health Services; also records a DMS/NHS England shared-health-services facilities project and Veterans Gateway funding. Keeps MOD/NHS health-record transfer live before the CORTISONE label appears. Veterans Gateway and shared facilities are not NHS App architecture evidence.
2017 General digital-health / data matching Records work to access the NHS number from MOD electronic health records and to flag and receive death records from NHS Digital; also records Veterans Gateway launch and electronic school-transfer data. Shows NHS Digital and MOD electronic-record/data-matching activity adjacent to patient identity and record linkage. Data matching and Veterans Gateway are not patient-facing NHS App functions.
2018 General digital-health / data matching Records NHS Digital matching-process work for veteran mortality reporting, GP-registration veteran-status questioning, and service-child information-transfer tooling. Adds evidence that NHS Digital data matching and registration questions were annual-report concerns before CORTISONE was named. Not an NHS App, NHS account, or GP Connect Patient Facing API source.
2019 General digital-health / data sharing Records death-record sharing protocols with NHS Digital and devolved-administration equivalents, plus NHS Digital-owned NCDR data use in mental-health service reporting. Supports the wider digital-health evidence boundary around data sharing and service reporting. Not DPHC NHS App continuation and/or adoption evidence and not CORTISONE-branded evidence.

Interpretation

  • NHS App-specific evidence is first-class but narrow: the current direct annual-report signal is one 2024 appointment-booking access issue for a source-defined DMS primary-healthcare cohort.
  • The 2025 annual-report recheck does not resolve the 2024 NHS App issue; it only confirms no direct annual-report follow-up signal was found in the current review.
  • No pre-2020 NHS App-specific evidence: the reviewed 2012 to 2019 reports do not contain literal NHS App, NHS account, or NHS login evidence.
  • CORTISONE naming boundary: the reviewed pre-2020 reports do not use the CORTISONE name; they use Defence Medical Information Service / Programme and medical-record-transfer language. Treat that as predecessor or adjacent programme context unless a source explicitly maps names and governance. Preserve source casing for Programme CORTISONE, Programme Cortisone, and Op CORTISONE.
  • NHS App-adjacent evidence: the 2012 to 2025 reports repeatedly describe record-transfer, health-identifier, NHS Digital, MOD/NHS information-sharing, Programme CORTISONE / Op CORTISONE, DMS primary-care, mobility, and electronic-health-record issues that may affect continuation and/or adoption, GP registration continuity, and linked/proxy access analysis.
  • Evidence boundary: CORTISONE programme material and electronic health-record integration with the NHS must not be treated as NHS App integration unless a direct MOD, NHS England, NHS England Digital, supplier, or service-owner source says so.
  • Feature-page rule: appointment, proxy-access, eligibility, and other feature pages should cross-reference this report-series page and state the feature-specific implication, not carry the full annual-report narrative.

Follow-Up Evidence Needed