Send a push notification

Overview

Use this endpoint to send a native Apple or Android push notifications to mobile devices registered by specific users of the NHS App.

Push notifications will not be sent to users between the hours of 10pm and 6am UK time. If a valid request to send a push notification is processed between these hours, the push notification will be scheduled for delivery at 6am.

Recipients are specified by NHS number. A single request to this endpoint can send a push notification to a single NHS number. Push notifications will only be sent to users who have had their identity verified to 'high' (P9) level.

The body text of notifications can be up to 200 characters in length.

They must not contain:

• personally identifiable information (for example, the name of a user’s doctor)
• sensitive information (for example, details about a health condition)
• links to external websites

You can also optionally specify a URL for a page within the NHS App to be opened when the recipient taps on the push notification. If a URL is not specified, the NHS App will open on the home page.

The body of requests made to this endpoint are instances of HL7 FHIR R4 CommunicationRequest resources. This schema documentation describes which fields on that resource we require and support. The API is tolerant of (but will silently ignore) any additionally supplied optional fields. For example, we do not currently honour the doNotPerform or priority fields.

The outcome of communication requests can be determined using the daily receipt report endpoint. You may also create an endpoint into which NHS App can post the outcome of individual communication requests in realtime — we call this feature "realtime receipts". We have created an OpenAPI specification detailing the behaviour of the endpoint that you should create to subscribe to realtime receipts.