NHSmail Services

Email

The NHSmail service is hosted in Microsoft Exchange Online and provides Standard Service users with a 4GB mailbox, while Enhanced Service users are allocated a 50GB mailbox. All mailboxes come with an Exchange Online Archive for each mailbox which is initially provisioned at 100GB.

Mailbox top-ups

An organisation can purchase their own licences to increase mailbox size, while automated archiving can be utilised to maximise existing quotas. If you are a Local Administrator (LA) and want to learn more about managing the mailbox quota, please visit the managing mailbox quota support site guidance.

Users can access NHSmail via multiple channels such as on the web or through desktop and mobile apps.

M365 applications and features

Access to applications such as Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint is provided as a standard to all NHSmail users. Access to applications can be managed by Local Administrators (LAs) to suit local organisation needs. For more information on the full collaboration toolkit visit the M365 feature introduction article.

The NHSmail Portal provides users and Local Administrator tools to manage user accounts on the service. This includes account management, organisation management and policies, audit and reporting functions.

The portal also offers functionality to manage O365 features including licenses and applications, Teams, SharePoint Sites and service top-ups such as M365 Apps for Enterprise.

Guest access

Through the NHSmail Portal, Guest Access functionality can be used to invite non NHSmail external colleagues onto the platform. This enables collaboration across the suite of O365 applications in a secure and safe manner. For more information, please read the introduction to external users guest access article.

NHS Directory (People Finder)

The NHS directory provides a single source of contact information for health and social care.

This is available via the NHSmail Portal and provides the ability to search for people based on a number of different profile attributes, for example, name, clinical speciality and location.

Each user will join the growing community of NHS professionals with a @nhs.net address and benefit from easier access to find and collaborate with colleagues on a national scale.

For further guidance on the NHS Directory please visit the Using NHS Directory (People Finder) NHSmail support pages.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is the primary communication tool on the platform. With Teams, users can:

• Talk to and collaborate with NHSmail colleagues from different organisations and locations in real-time
• Setup audio and video conference meetings in Exchange Online
• Create a Teams site for project work, upload files and collaborate using persistent chat features
• Download and access Teams features on your mobile device

Check out the support site area dedicated to Teams functionality to find out more.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA helps protect users by making it more difficult for someone else to sign in to their NHSmail account. It uses two different forms of identity: the user’s password, and a secondary authentication method. To learn more about MFA, please visit the Multi-Factor Authentication guidance.

M365 top-up licences

Some organisations may want to offer a more comprehensive set of features to their userbase. Local organisations can procure licences to onboard to the NHSmail tenant for allocation via the NHSmail portal.

The service supports a wide range of base licences and top-up services. Please visit the Licence matrix guidance for a comprehensive view.

NHSmail roadmap

The cloud hosted NHSmail service means new capabilities are frequently released. Visit the roadmap for updates on future offerings.

NHSmail support site

The NHSmail support site provides detailed guidance and self-help articles for queries associated to NHSmail. Users can browse the site to learn more about the email and collaboration capabilities and visit links to training content.

There is a host of tailored content aimed at Local IT including remediation advice, portal guides and much more.

Migration Services

To support organisations in joining the NHSmail service, a range of flexible professional services are available to support on-boarding. This includes provision of migration tools to full end-to-end management of migration and business change support.

Case Studies

Find out how NHSmail has changed the way health and social care colleagues work.  These case studies are also available in web text format, on the NHS England website.

Self-migration to NHSmail

South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW CSU) – colleagues at SCW CSU share their self-migration journey to NHSmail, including the key benefits and lessons learnt.

Social care organisations

The Uplands at Oxon Care Home – Carey Bloomer, Registered Manager at The Uplands, explains how NHSmail has made decision making quicker and reduced time spent on administration.

Swanton Care and Community Limited – NHSmail has allowed Swanton Care to share information quickly and securely with their collaborative partners, saving time and effort previously spent on conventional post, fax or telephone.

Stanfield Nursing Home – Since migrating to NHSmail, Stanfield Nursing Home has seen significant time savings, allowing the care home’s registered nurse (RN) to spend less time making phone calls and instead focusing more on the core purpose of patient care.