Practices are to be given two years to switch all correspondence to electronic carriers, such as email, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock is to announce today.

Mr Hancock will cite the scandal of practice correspondence lost by support services as a reason for switching to email, Under the proposals, patients would be able to opt out of email correspondence. New NHS guidance will say that email can be just as secure as mail sent in the post.

Mr Hancock is due to say: “Having to deal with outdated technology is hugely frustrating for staff and patients alike — and in many cases downright dangerous. A letter lost in the post could be the difference between life and death.

“Today’s guidance confirms there is no reason why a doctor cannot email a patient confidentially, for example with their test results or prescription, rather than make them wait days for a letter or ask them to come in to the surgery. The rest of the world runs on email — and the NHS should too.”

Professor Carrie MacEwen, chair of the Academy of the Medical Royal Colleges, said: “We entirely agree that in the 21st century the NHS should be using email and texts to communicate with patients wherever practical.”

Royal College of GPs chair Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard warned that there was not “an easy fix.”

She told The Times: “Aspirations to use less paper and more modern communication techniques to improve the way we work with colleagues and improve patients’ experience of the health service are good. But the practicalities of how we do it need to be thought through carefully — current IT systems in the NHS are often clunky and frustrating but there isn’t an easy fix and it is difficult to see how the wholescale changes being advocated can be done safely in the timescales being spoken about.”

NHS England also lifted restrictions on smartphone based GP practices yesterday. It says these practices will now be able to enrol patients from up to 100 miles away.

The new proposals emerged in advice to a clinical commissioning group in London, which has been asked to approve the expansion of Babylon Health.

NHS England says that it has found a way to ensure patients at these practices can access local screening and immunisation services.