A Trigger Words is a word within an outgoing message that has been assigned a clinical code, thereby if a patient responds with this word, the clinical code will be recorded over on your clinical system to your patent’s record.

A quick example is with the below Flu Invitation template:

Within the template there is the expression of DECLINE. This is set to be the Trigger Word for this Flu Invitation message.

A practice can then assign the clinical code of Seasonal influenza vaccination declined, therefore if a patient replies with the word DECLINE, the code will be forwarded to the patient’s record on the clinical system.

If a patient is an NHS App user, they will still be able to receive messages sent via Connect. There are just a few things to keep in mind concerning Triagger Words:

• The system is now sending messages to NHS App wherever possible
• Currently,  patients using the NHS App cannot reply to messages as the app is one-way. This will eventually be updated to work two-way.
• If your message contains a Trigger Word (e.g.  DECLINE) it will automatically be sent as a standard message SMS message, and patients will be able to reply via text.