Portasana
Integrating Portasana® with the NHS App via Wayfinder: A First-of-Type Mental Health Deployment
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Background
Portasana® is a fully integrated patient engagement platform (PEP), streamlining virtual care pathways for more connected and efficient care. Portasana supports NHS Trusts and healthcare providers with tools for virtual care pathways, symptom tracking, online forms and assessments, educational resources, appointment management, secure messaging, device and wearables connectivity, and patient self-management. The platform is ISO 27001 certified and compliant with NHS standards including DCB0129 and DCB3051. Portasana has established integrations with hospital EPR systems and supports user identity authentication via NHS Login for patients and NHS Smartcard or SSO for staff. The programme also focused specifically on mental health pathways, representing the first deployment of its type within this clinical domain via the NHS App’s Wayfinder initiative.
Amid NHS digital strategy advances, particularly the “Wayfinder” Patient Care Aggregator initiative, the team identified a key opportunity to integrate Portasana more deeply so that its appointment booking and care pathway tools are visible within the NHS App. This would extend patient access via tools they already use, increase engagement, and reduce friction in accessing care.
The Need
Key objectives centred on ensuring that Portasana appointments could be surfaced within the NHS App via the Patient Care Aggregator, and that the user experience across Portasana and the NHS App would be streamlined, especially through deep linking. Specifically, the requirements included building a “Get Appointments” FHIR API that the Patient Care Aggregator could call to fetch a patient’s upcoming or relevant bookings from Portasana, ensuring those appointments appear within the NHS App. Alongside that, Portasana needed to provide a deep link mechanism so that, when patients see a Portasana appointment in the NHS App, tapping it would launch them into the correct appointment view within Portasana for more detail or actions such as rescheduling, accessing resources, or completing forms.
The integration had to meet NHS requirements across technical standards, information governance, and clinical safety. It also needed to utilise NHS Login for authentication, comply with performance and logging requirements, and pass through NHS App onboarding and assurance. The Portasana team required a partner to deliver discovery, feasibility, technical design, and testing to ensure a compliant and successful integration. In addition, the integration was required to support live mental health service workflows in partnership with Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, including interoperability with Access Rio as the Trust’s EPR. This introduced additional complexity around appointment synchronisation, data governance, and standards-based messaging, including HL7 FHIR alignment.
The Solution
6B worked closely with the team at Portasana to design the technical integration with the NHS App via the Patient Care Aggregator. Discovery sessions with the product, engineering, and governance teams established a clear roadmap for development and assurance, as well as the scope of APIs and deep link functionality required. As this represented a first-of-type deployment for mental health use cases within the NHS App ecosystem, additional clinical and operational discovery was undertaken to ensure alignment with specialist mental health workflows and Trust-level governance requirements.
The solution involved extending Portasana’s existing FHIR APIs to include a “Get Appointments” endpoint conforming to NHS Patient Care Aggregator standards, returning FHIR R4 Appointment resources in the required format. To support user journeys, Portasana was enhanced with deep link capabilities, allowing users to jump directly from an NHS App appointment entry into the relevant appointment detail within Portasana. The solution also supported Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Access Rio integration, leveraging HL7 FHIR messaging to ensure accurate appointment visibility and data consistency between Portasana, the Trust EPR, and the NHS App Patient Care Aggregator.
6B also guided the team through the NHS App integration onboarding process, including digital eligibility checks, clinical safety compliance, data protection impact assessments, and technical conformance. The solution was designed to be secure and scalable, with OAuth 2.0 authentication, NHS Login token verification, robust error handling, and comprehensive diagnostic logging. Sandbox and test environments were established for performance, end-to-end, and live proving stages, ensuring confidence before rollout.
The Impact
The integration allows patients using Portasana-enabled services to see their appointments directly within the NHS App, reducing the need to manage multiple platforms. As a first-of-type mental health deployment through Wayfinder, the programme demonstrated how specialist services can be surfaced safely and effectively within the NHS App. By surfacing appointments in a familiar environment, patient accessibility is improved, and engagement with services is enhanced. The deep link functionality streamlines the experience further, enabling patients to move seamlessly from the NHS App into Portasana to view appointment details, complete forms, or access tailored resources.
For healthcare providers, the integration strengthens Portasana’s value proposition by increasing patient uptake of digital tools, reducing unnecessary administrative queries, and aligning with NHS digital strategy goals. The compliance and assurance work ensures that Portasana can scale this integration across additional Trusts, extending benefits more widely. Longer term, the foundations established in this project will support richer integrations, such as extending to documents, questionnaires, and notifications within the NHS App, enhancing patient experience and operational efficiency.
6B were a trusted partner throughout this project, combining deep technical expertise with a genuine understanding of NHS digital programmes. Together, we’ve delivered an innovative integration that makes it easier for patients to access their care through the NHS App while laying the foundations for future enhancements. Their collaborative approach and commitment to quality gave us confidence at every stage of the journey.
– Sonia Neary, Clinical and Commercial Lead, Portasana®