News - week commencing 04 May 2026

A new version of the Endpoint Registration (EPR) Software is being released. The release will consist of three phases

Phase1 - A new User Interface

The User Interface has been given a long overdue facelift in line with recent NHSE standards. The functionality remains largely unchanged and is hopefully intuitive.

Phase 2 - Integration with CIS2

EPR is one of the last NHSE systems to migrate to CIS2 Auth. We expect to decommission CIS1 Auth by Feb ’27.

Phase 3 - Java Uplift

The system needs a seismic jump in Java version for security and other reasons.

The general strategy will be to deploy each of these changes into the Path to Live (PTL) environments, Integration and Deployment, every few weeks for testing by internal NHSE teams and any 3^rd parties that use EPR in the PTL environments, then into the Production environment around a month later, assuming we haven’t found any major issues that require extensive rework.

The release schedule is 

• Phase 1 into PTL 6 May – Production 3 Jun​
• Phase 2 into PTL 20 May – Production 17 Jun
• Phase 3 into PTL 17 Jun – Production 15 Jul

When the new versions are deployed, the legacy / prior version will be disabled. We will not be  ‘dual running’ the two alongside each other. In case of severe issues, rollback may be required and this will be advertised on the PTL website. 

Given there are no functional changes to EPR, and much of the uplift is either cosmetic (UI) or transparent (Java), there is not currently any written guidance. 

As part of planned changes to support the introduction of a new Advice and Guidance (A&G) service, the e‑RS INT training environment is being used by the development team to test specific scenarios.This activity will continue until 19 May. During this period, users may experience intermittent downtime or reduced availability.

Where possible, any required updates or outages will be carried out, out of hours, although this may not always be achievable.

This is formal communications which needs to be read, understood and responded to where necessary.  

As you are probably aware, the NHS England Medium Term Planning Framework states that trusts are to move toward the e-Referral Service (e-RS) being used for all Advice and Guidance requests from primary care, with effect from July 2026, where these requests are managed within the e-RS user interface, and from October 2026 where a third-party service is used.

We will work with regions and providers to ensure rapid but manageable roll-out supported by appropriate platforms, including improvements to the
functionality of e-RS. e-RS in this context means either the web / professional application or e-RS APIs and we understand that the timelines in the guidance only applies to GP practices, although we expect future expansion to other primary services such as dental and optometry as e-RS uptake increases and functionally continues to develop.   

To support the focus on A&G we, the Referrals and Appointments Team, will be launching a new A&G web interface and new API endpoints from April this year.  These endpoints will provide additional functionality for both referrers and providers.  More detail on these endpoints and further policy information will be made available soon. 

At this stage we are just looking to identify which of our API partners (be they trusts or 3^rd party suppliers) are likely to be impacted by the change in A&G policy so that we can work closely with you to ensure a smooth transition.  To help with this we will be setting up some webinars, later in February, to tell you more about the new functionality and to do our best to answer any questions regarding the policy and next steps.

Please can you respond saying whether you are impacted by this guidance and, if so, provide a contact name and email address for further discussions.  Please also feel free to ask any questions about the guidance you have at this stage.