Armed Forces Patient Groups

Defence Primary Healthcare (DPHC) NHS App analysis should separate patient groups because eligibility, registration, and access routes may differ.

Use Registration State Model for the dimensional registration, transition, age, access, and family / proxy model, and Guidance Decision Model for the current decision status by cohort and route.

Group	Key question	Current evidence
Serving personnel registered with DPHC	Can they use NHS App GP-linked services and continue after moving registration?	Annual reports record DPHC / NHS record-transfer, pre-CORTISONE Defence Medical Information Programme, and Programme CORTISONE / Op CORTISONE issues, but direct NHS App feature evidence is still required.
Dependants registered with ordinary NHS GP	Does the dependant's own NHS GP registration control NHS App access, and does any parent / carer proxy route fail if the service person is registered with a different DPHC practice?	Public NHS sources imply access follows the dependant's own age, GP registration, account, and proxy setup rather than the service person's status; NHS England Digital proxy guidance adds a same-GP-practice requirement that needs DPHC validation.
Children and linked-profile/proxy users with Defence Medical Services (DMS) / DPHC registration	Has the reported NHS App appointment-booking access issue been resolved, and how do under-13, 13-to-15, 16+, parent / guardian proxy, and same-practice rules behave for DPHC registration?	Direct issue recorded in the 2024 Armed Forces Covenant annual report for a source-defined under-13 DMS primary-healthcare cohort; public NHS sources define ordinary child and proxy rules but not DPHC behaviour.
DPHC Overseas [DPHC(O)] armed-forces community	Does Defence Global Practice affect NHS App availability for DPHC(O) patients?	The Defence Global Practice overseas healthcare guide exists; annual reports record overseas return and electronic child health-record concerns, but app impact is unresolved.
Veterans leaving DPHC registration	Does NHS App access change during transition to NHS GP registration?	Annual reports repeatedly identify MOD-to-NHS medical-record transfer and continuity issues; direct NHS App transition behaviour is still unsourced.

Boundary

Do not treat the armed-forces community as one access model. Registration, age, dependant status, proxy / linked-profile status, same-GP-practice relationship, mobility, DPHC(O) posting, and transition out of DPHC Firmbase or DPHC(O) registration are likely decisive variables. The 2024 appointment-booking access issue is a direct NHS App signal for a source-defined under-13 DMS primary-healthcare cohort, not the whole annual-report finding.