Deprecated Basic Authentication for NHS Mail SMTP

API Platform
1

Hi there,

I’m looking for a technical contact who can answer some questions about the forthcoming deprecation of Basic Auth for NHS Mail SMTP. One of the software products we produce sends mail using a variety of NHS mail accounts, which are configurable by each trust. Some trusts have configured our software to send mail via smtp.office365.comwhich will shortly be migrated to use OAuth2 for authentication, however my question is really about some other mail hosts in use. For example, the High Volume endpoint at send.nhs.net or the national mail relay at relay.nhs.uk. Am I correct in thinking that these will remain on Basic Authentication for now?

Additionally, some trusts use internal mail relays with *.nhs.uk names. It’s not clear whether the authentication options for these will change.

Is there someone I can pick these questions up with please? We have previously raised with the NHS Help Desk, but they’re not equipped to answer this.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

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Hi Paul,

Thank you for your patience with this query. Unfortunately, this may not be something that we (NHS England API Platform team) can directly help with.

A key point to clarify up front is that NHS API Platform does not own or manage NHSmail, SMTP endpoints, or mail relay services, so we can’t give authoritative commitments on authentication methods for those services. However, we can help you get to the right place and clarify what is generally understood today.

You will have to reach out to the NHS Mail team to help resolve this.

For endpoints such as:

  • send.nhs.net (High Volume Service)
  • relay.nhs.uk (national mail relay)

these are NHSmail services, not generic Office 365 SMTP endpoints.

As of now:

  • These services are not part of the Microsoft Basic Auth deprecation programme in the same way as smtp.office365.com.
  • They continue to support Basic Authentication, subject to NHSmail policy and service controls.
  • Any future change (e.g. OAuth2 support or deprecation of Basic Auth) would be communicated by the NHSmail programme

Hope the above helps.

For any further queries, you will need to contact NHSmail Helpdesk directly. The primary route is via NHSmail Helpdesk (National). The NHSmail Helpdesk is the official front door to the NHSmail National Service Desk and programme team. All technical queries, including SMTP authentication, relay services, and roadmap questions, need to be sent to the NHSmail support site: https://support.nhs.net/

Thanks,

NHS England API Platform team

Please note: The API Platform team can only address queries relevant to the NHS England API platform, including security, rate limiting, logging, monitoring and alerting. For any API, CIS2, NHS Login specific queries, please reach out the relevant API / Service teams.

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Hi Navin,

That’s really helpful, thanks for your response. I’ll get in touch with the NHS Mail helpdesk for any further details we require. For trusts which are using non-standard mail hosts, we’re going to reach out individually to them for clarification.

All the best,

Paul

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