The end of patient feedback on NHS.UK: what does this mean for you?

You may have heard by now that the NHS.UK “ratings and reviews” service for England will be closing down imminently. How will this affect you, and what action should you take, if any?

What is happening?

NHS.UK emailed health services on 2 June 2025 with news that the NHS Ratings & Reviews service would be taken offline by the end of June.

The NHS Ratings & Reviews service is similar to Care Opinion: you can post an experience of care online, and the health care provider may respond. It has always been a very simple service and has not evolved over time in the way that Care Opinion has, so it creates limited impacts for patients or providers (more on this below).

NHS.UK says the service is ending because of "low engagement, limited value, security issues and lack of resources".

How will this affect my use of NHS.UK?

If you are a patient, you won’t be able to post any new stories via NHS.UK, or see stories posted previously.

If you are a healthcare provider, you won’t receive any new stories or be able to see existing feedback on NHS.UK.

How will this affect Care Opinion?

Care Opinion will continue to operate just as it does now: patients can post stories, providers can respond, and all existing feedback (including that which came via NHS.UK) will remain online and available for searching, reporting, data visualisations and so on.

Our widgets will continue to work for you just as before.

If you are a paid subscriber, it is likely that almost all your feedback comes via Care Opinion already and you may not notice any change to our service or your experience of it.

If you rely on our free service, you are probably not inviting feedback via Care Opinion, and most feedback you have received will have been via NHS.UK. If so, then you will see very few new stories about your services once the NHS.UK system closes.

What should I do now?

If you have a paid subscription you don’t need to take any action. Everything will continue to work well. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to connect with our support team.

But if you rely on our free service, now is the time to take another look at a paid Care Opinion subscription. You might be surprised by how much Care Opinion offers:

• Our online platform offers a range of sophisticated and time-saving features
• Our support team can help you get up to speed quickly and learn from others
• Independent research shows how Care Opinion fosters patient-centred care, improves staff morale, identifies significant safety issues and builds trust between staff and patients

You should direct your patients and carers towards Care Opinion right away, to maintain your flow of feedback. (There are lots of ways to do this - just ask us.)

You should also look at our subscription options: subscriptions can be any size, from a single team to a whole provider organisation, an ICB area, or a whole health system. And they can include and involve not just providers but commissioners, Healthwatch and others too.

Why Care Opinion?

Care Opinion began 20 years ago (then called Patient Opinion) and is the original and still the best UK feedback platform for innovation, impact, accessibility and ease of use.

We’ve been online for patients and staff every day since 2005. We remain resolutely value-driven, not-profit, and committed to continuous learning for public benefit.

And more than one NHS trust CEO has called Care Opinion "a gamechanger".

There’s never been a better time to get in touch and discuss your upgrade options.

For further information or to arrange an informal chat, please contact:

Miriam Rivas-Aguilar, Chief Operating Office, Care Opinion: 

miriam.rivas-aguilar@careopinion.org.uk

or call us on 0114 281 6256.