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NINA Personal Detail Update Flow is Not Working

Purpose of Document

Patients use NINA to update their personal details including name changes, address changes, and contact number updates without needing to call the surgery. When this flow fails, patients are blocked from completing a straightforward administrative task and often call the surgery instead, adding unnecessary pressure to reception. Support staff must be able to identify the cause quickly and resolve or escalate correctly.

Background: How the NINA Personal Detail Update Flow Works

The personal detail update flow is an administrative journey within NINA. It is part of the Admin consultation flow and is available to patients on surgeries that have NINA configured with the Admin journey enabled.

The flow works as follows:

  1. The patient selects the option to update their personal details within NINA
  2. NINA asks the patient to verify their identity. This typically involves confirming their name and date of birth
  3. Once identity is verified, the patient is prompted to provide the new detail they want to update: name, address, phone number, or email address
  4. NINA captures the updated information and submits it as an administrative request to the practice's consultation tool inbox
  5. The practice team reviews and action the update within their clinical system

This flow does not update the clinical system or PDS directly. NINA submits the request as an administrative task for the practice team to complete. The practice is responsible for making the actual update in their system.

Common Causes and What to Check

1. The patient's date of birth was rejected as a future date (March 2026 fix)

Before 25 March 2026, a known validation bug caused patients entering a valid past date of birth to receive an error message stating their date was in the future. This affected the SOPHIA, RapidHealth, and Admin consultation flows including the personal detail update flow.

For example, a patient entering 30/01/2024 as their date of birth was incorrectly told this was a future date. This blocked patients from completing the identity verification step and prevented them from accessing the personal detail update flow entirely.

This was resolved on 25 March 2026. The date of birth validation now uses the correct real-time system date. Valid past dates are accepted without error.

What to do:

  • Confirm whether the complaint predates 25 March 2026
  • If before that date, reassure the practice the issue has been resolved
  • If after that date and patients are still receiving future-date errors for valid past dates, escalate to engineering immediately with the surgery ODS code and the date of birth format the patient was entering

2. The patient entered their date of birth in an unexpected format

NINA expects date of birth to be entered in a specific format. If a patient enters the date in a different format, for example typing "January 30 1985" instead of "30/01/1985," the validation may fail or NINA may be unable to process it.

What to do:

  • Confirm whether the patient was given clear format guidance within the NINA interface
  • Check whether the format guidance shown in NINA matches the format required
  • If NINA is not displaying clear format instructions, raise a configuration improvement request
  • Advise the practice to inform patients to enter dates as day, month, year with forward slashes

3. The Admin journey is not enabled for that surgery's NINA configuration

The personal detail update flow is part of the Admin consultation journey. If the Admin journey was not enabled during NINA configuration for that surgery, patients will not be able to access this flow at all.

What to do:

  • Check the NINA configuration for that surgery
  • Confirm whether the Admin journey is enabled
  • If not, confirm with the practice whether they want it enabled and raise a configuration request

4. The identity verification step is failing due to a name mismatch

If the patient enters a name that does not match their record as held in the practice's consultation tool, identity verification may fail. This prevents the patient from proceeding to the detail update step.

What to do:

  • Confirm with the practice what name the patient is registered under on their clinical system
  • Advise the patient to use the name exactly as it appears on their surgery record, including any previous names if relevant
  • If the patient has recently changed their name and the old name is still on the system, they may need to call reception to update their details directly rather than using NINA for this specific case

5. The submission was completed but the practice has not actioned the update

Occasionally the NINA flow completes correctly and the submission appears in the dashboard, but the practice team has not yet actioned the update in their clinical system. The patient then follows up believing the update did not work.

What to do:

  • Check the dashboard to confirm whether a personal detail update submission exists for that patient
  • If a submission is present, advise the practice to action it within their clinical system
  • Clarify to the practice that NINA submits the request but the clinical team must apply the update in the system manually. NINA does not write directly to the clinical system.

6. Context bleed from a previous session caused the flow to fail mid-way

As covered in Article 26, before the March 2026 session isolation fix, context from previous consultation tool sessions could persist and cause flows to behave unexpectedly. If the patient had used another consultation tool before starting the personal detail update flow, this context could cause the Admin journey to stall or return incorrect responses.

This was resolved on 25 March 2026 with the General Enquiries session isolation fix. All sessions are now fully isolated.

What to do:

  • Confirm whether the complaint predates 25 March 2026
  • If after that date and session interference is suspected, escalate to engineering with the surgery ODS code and a description of what the patient experienced

Step-by-Step Triage Process

  1. Ask the practice to describe the specific failure. At what point did the flow break down? Did the patient receive an error? Did they complete the flow but the update was not applied?
  2. Confirm the surgery's consultation tool and whether the Admin journey is enabled in their NINA configuration.
  3. Check whether the failure involves a date of birth validation error and whether the incident predates 25 March 2026.
  4. Check whether the patient may have entered their name or date of birth differently from how it appears in their surgery record.
  5. Check the dashboard to confirm whether a personal detail update submission was received from that patient.
  6. If the submission is in the dashboard and not yet actioned, advise the practice to process it.
  7. If no submission is in the dashboard and the flow was not completed, identify the most likely failure point from the causes above.
  8. If the cause cannot be identified and the issue postdates 25 March 2026, escalate to engineering.

What to Tell the Practice

Example wording when a date of birth validation error occurred before the March 2026 fix:

"This was a known issue where patients entering a valid past date of birth were incorrectly told the date was in the future. This was resolved in March 2026 and your patients should no longer encounter this error. If patients are still seeing this message after March 2026, please let us know and we will investigate immediately."

Example wording when the submission was completed but not actioned:

"The personal detail update request has been submitted successfully and is visible in your dashboard. NINA captures the update request and passes it to your team, but the actual update in your clinical system needs to be made by your administrative staff. We would recommend assigning someone to check the dashboard regularly for personal detail update submissions and action them within your clinical system."

Example wording when the Admin journey is not enabled:

"The personal detail update flow is part of the Admin consultation journey in NINA. It looks like this journey is not currently enabled for your surgery's NINA configuration. We can enable it on request. Would you like us to set this up?"

Common Mistakes

  • Assuming the clinical system has been updated automatically when NINA submits the request. NINA submits an administrative task only. The practice team must make the update manually.
  • Not checking whether the Admin journey is enabled before investigating why patients cannot find the personal detail update option.
  • Not being aware of the March 2026 date of birth validation fix when responding to relevant complaints.
  • Advising the patient to re-enter their date of birth in a different format without first confirming what format NINA expects.
  • Not checking the dashboard for an existing submission before concluding the flow failed.

Escalation Guidance

Escalate to engineering if:

  • Patients are receiving future-date errors for valid past dates of birth after 25 March 2026
  • The personal detail update flow is failing to submit despite the patient completing all steps correctly
  • The Admin journey is confirmed enabled but patients cannot access the personal detail update option
  • Context bleed or session interference is occurring after 25 March 2026

When escalating, always include:

  • Surgery name and ODS code
  • Consultation tool used
  • Description of exactly what the patient experienced and at which step the flow failed
  • Whether the incident predates or postdates 25 March 2026
  • Whether a submission appears in the dashboard for that patient
  • The date of birth format the patient was entering, if relevant

Last Reviewed: May 2026 Owner: Support and Customer Success