A parent can follow their child's messages from your practice until the child's 11th birthday. On that day it stops on its own. The child can then take over their own account and decide whether their parent carries on helping them — and at 16 it ends for good, whatever anyone decides.
This article is what to expect, and the one thing you need to plan for.
The timeline
About three months before — the parent, the child's own contact and your practice are all told the access is ending, and what happens next. It appears in Practice → Proxy access requests under Ending soon.
On the 11th birthday — the parent's access stops automatically. Nobody has to do anything, and nothing can extend it. If our overnight job were to fail, the access would still stop: the check runs every time anything is read, not once a night.
When the child sets up their own account — they see who used to be able to see their messages, and choose: *yes, let them carry on helping me*, or *no thanks*. It is their decision, and they can change it later.
On the 16th birthday — parental access ends permanently and cannot be granted again by the young person.
The thing to plan for: a contact of their own
A child can only be sent a link to set up their own account if you hold an email or mobile for them, not just for a parent. Many practices hold only the parent's details.
The Ending soon list flags exactly this: each child shows either *Has their own account*, *Send them a link*, or No contact — hand over in person. Deal with the last group before the birthday, either by recording a contact for the young person or by setting the account up with them at the surgery.
What you should tell families
- The parent is not losing anything they need for the child's care — they can still ring, and still be told anything clinically necessary. What changes is who can see the child's own messages in Nexus.
- The young person decides. If they would like their parent to carry on, that takes one tap in their account.
- If they say no, that is the end of it as far as Nexus is concerned. Do not re-grant it on the parent's behalf.
Safeguarding beats the ages
The ages are ceilings, not entitlements. If there is a safeguarding concern, or a competent young person tells you they do not want a parent to have access, revoke it from the queue at any age — it stops immediately.
A revoked access can be asked for again later, but the revocation is never erased: whoever looks at the next request sees, in red, that it was revoked before and why. And a young person cannot undo a revoke you made — only your practice can.
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