This post – and the app it is about – stands as a kind of metaphor for digital public services much more widely. The app has a mostly slick front end, with a visual design which is both distinctively of the NHS and a clear descendant of the earlier work of GDS. But it sits on top of chaos which it can obscure only to a limited extent. It is a front end veneer for different systems, supporting different sets of functions and so fundamentally is not in control of its own user experience.
The post does a good job of explaining why that is and why, despite that, there is still value in the app. There is a circle which needs to be virtuous where a well-designed front end and a growing user base both demonstrate and create value to GP practices in improving their systems which in turn stimulates adoption and use by patients. But there is a risk that the circle turns vicious, that the expectations set by the modernity of the immediate user is undermined by the clunkiness of what lies behind. The good needs to drive out the bad, but the bad will not give in easily.