Salford Citizens Advice

Government websites and ‘Apps’ that you should know about:

The government is encouraging us all to go online in our interactions with it. Often online access provides the citizen with much more control and a quicker route into services, especially by bringing them more closely together.

The most important of these being the GOV.UK website  www.gov.uk where you can find a huge amount of national and local information.

We think Salford City Council’s website is very good as well, so you should be sure to check this for all your local council information needs at www.salford.gov.uk. You can also sign up to a personal account with the council, which will let you manage your council tax accounts, any benefits the council pays you, as well as to report issue to the council.

There is also the Better Off in Salford website run by the council. You can access this via the council’s website.

Increasingly, the way we can access services is moving to Apps – which can allow for a more personalised access to these services.

There is the NHS app which has been available for some years now, and about 60% of the population now use to help access NHS services. The app allows you to book appointments, order prescriptions, look up test results as well as see your medical records. It’s also very helpful in managing vaccinations. You can use the app to access the NHS 111 service for basic help, as well as in many GP practices use it to ask your practice questions about your health.

To register for the NHS app, you will need your NHS number which you will see on letters from your GP, or the hospital, or a recent prescription.

There is also the still relatively new HMRC app to help manage tax, national insurance and pension issues. This will allow you to see and check your personal tax and national insurance records instantly – it used to take weeks to do this before. You can see how much state pension you are going to get – don’t forget this is dependent on how many years you actually pay national insurance for. You can also use it to manage tax credits or child benefit issues. They also have a useful tax calculator – as well as letting you manage self-assessment if this applies to you. It’s always a good idea to check your national insurance records every few years, especially if you are approaching retirement age, in case there are any gaps, which you might want to think about filling, by paying extra.

To sign up for the HMRC app you will need to have registered for a Government Gateway account. To do this you will need your UK passport, or if you don’t have a UK passport you can use your latest P60 form instead.

We are also refreshing our Salford cab website, which we hope to have online very shortly. (You can still use the old site for now.)

 

Tom Togher

June 27, 2024.