A new iPhone application has been launched to allow patients to keep track of their NHS appointments and rate the services they use.
The app, which is called Wellnote, has been introduced by former health minister Lord Darzi.
It lets patients enter their medical history, including any allergies, specific health problems and test results, so that the record can be emailed or shown to a doctor in the event of an emergency.
The application, which is free to download, contains a list of more than 2,000 medications so people can enter the specific drugs they take, and create alerts to remind them when to take tablets and when they have an NHS appointment.
Users will be able to anonymously rate healthcare services in England in the same way they rate music on iTunes, and the scores will appear alongside official ratings from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) so patients can compare scores in a similar way to online hotel and restaurant review sites.
Lord Darzi, who quit as a minister in July 2009, created Wellnote with his team at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London.
Lord Darzi said: “Wellnote will empower the public by giving them the tools they need to make informed decisions about their health and well-being.
“By designing a new way for patients to share their knowledge based on personal experience, we will continue to drive up the quality of healthcare services in this country.
“We want the public to use the application in a similar way to how they use online hotel and restaurant rating sites.”
The health information contained in the app is taken from the Government’s NHS Choices website.
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