Delivery times
It can take different amounts of time for messages to be delivered depending on the message channel.
Find out about delivery times for:
NHS App messages
NHS Notify can send NHS App messages to recipients with the NHS App at any time.
If a recipient has notifications turned on, they’ll also receive a push notification.
Push notifications are only sent to recipients between 6am and 10pm. If you send a message outside of these hours, the notification will be sent from 6am.
Learn more about NHS App messages.
Emails
Once an email has been sent, our email provider will try to deliver it to the recipient for up to 72 hours.
NHS Notify will only send emails from 8am to 6pm on weekdays.
Open rates and click-throughs
NHS Notify cannot tell you if your users open an email or click on the links in an email.
We do not track open rates and click-throughs because of privacy issues. Tracking emails without asking permission from users could breach General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
Text messages (SMS)
Once a text message has been sent, our text message provider will try to deliver it to the recipient for up to 72 hours.
NHS Notify will only send text messages from 8am to 6pm on weekdays.
Learn more about text messages.
Letters
Once you’ve made a request with NHS Notify API or NHS Notify MESH, it can take up to 2 working days for our suppliers to dispatch your letter.
We use NHS Notify’s standard postage as our default for letters. Most letters get delivered 3 business days after they’re dispatched.
If you need different postage, such as 1st or 2nd class, speak to your onboarding manager.
From 28 July, delivery times for all letters except 1st class are changing. This is due to Royal Mail’s service reforms.
For more information, visit Royal Mail’s website.
NHS barcode
If you want to send your letter with Royal Mail’s NHS barcode, your message content needs to meet certain criteria and you need to use 1st or 2nd class postage. Speak to your onboarding manager to discuss your options.