The NHS has reached its target of rolling out a new online GP registration service to 2,000 GP practices by the end of the year.

The online Register with a GP surgery service, managed by NHS England aims to make the the process simpler and more convenient for both patients and GP practices.

Patients are able to go online at any time of day to find and register with a local GP without having to visit the practice in person during opening hours.

One in three GP practices now offer the service and more than 750,000 patients have already used the service since its launch in 2022.

GP practices process 6.8 million registrations a year and many still use paper forms which requires patients to visit the surgery in person.

The new online tool has been shown to save GP practice staff admin time.

An target of reaching 2,000 GP practices by the end of December 2023 was set in the Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care. The goal was achieved a month earlier than expected, with more than 2,100 surgeries enrolled by the end of November 2023.

Dr Amanda Doyle, national director of primary care and community services for NHS England, said: “Online GP registration is one of the many innovative ways the NHS is transforming how practices work to make it as easy as possible for patients to get the care they need.

“At a time when record numbers of patients are coming forward to see their GP, it helps free up the time of busy practice staff so they can spend more time focusing on patients, and less time filling in paperwork”.

Katie Howard, practice manager at Cleevelands Medical Centre in Cheltenham, said: “Our patients have found it very revolutionary, as it’s so user-friendly and they can use it on the go.

“It saves our surgery staff between three to five minutes per patient. When you consider we get 25 registrations a day, that is a significant amount of time we are saving to invest back into the patients”.