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.
Letters
Once you’ve provided us with recipients’ NHS numbers, it can take up to 2 working days for our suppliers to dispatch your letter.
First class letters are delivered 1 to 2 business days after they’re dispatched.
Second class letters are delivered 2 to 3 days after they’re dispatched.
Royal Mail delivers from Monday to Saturday, excluding bank holidays.