Nhs-website-content API returns 503/401 while hello-world works

NHS Website Content API
1

Hello,

I’m experiencing an issue when trying to access the nhs-website-content API in both the Sandbox and Integration Test environments.

Summary:
At the moment, only the endpoint
https://sandbox.api.service.nhs.uk/hello-world/hello/application
is working correctly.

Requests to the nhs-website-content/conditions endpoint fail in both environments.

Application details:
Sandbox:
Application ID: 235af707-2189-4e23-9da1-b7e2736e48c8

Integration Test:
Application ID: d6b48413-d224-410a-b074-0689de050418

Sandbox behaviour:
Request:
GET https://sandbox.api.service.nhs.uk/nhs-website-content/conditions/
Headers:
Content-Type: application/json
apikey: *****

Response:
HTTP/1.1 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

At the same time, the following request succeeds using the same API key:
GET https://sandbox.api.service.nhs.uk/hello-world/hello/application
Response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
{“message”:“Hello Application!”}

Integration Test behaviour:
Request:
GET https://int.api.service.nhs.uk/nhs-website-content/conditions/
Headers:
Content-Type: application/json
apikey: *****

Response:
HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
Access Denied

From the response, it looks like the request may be blocked due to permissions or application configuration.

Could you please advise:

  • Whether the nhs-website-content API is currently available in Sandbox?

  • Whether additional permissions, products, or approvals are required for this API in the Integration Test environment?

  • If there are any known issues or restrictions affecting this endpoint?

Please let me know if you need any additional information from my side.

Thank you for your help.

2

Thank you for raising the above, we are aware of an ongoing issue with the integration environment and are working on a fix, I will also ask one of my team to reach out to ensure there is nothing else affecting your operations with the API.

Thanks

Molly

3

Hi Molly

I am wondering if the API access issue has been fixed. I also ran into 401 and 404 errors when I tried the NHS website content API in the integration test environment and 503 error in the sandbox environment today (23rd March 2025). Many thanks, Haymar

4

Hi Molly,

I’m also experiencing this issue as of today - although the problem seems to have started as of a few months ago in our testing environment which used to work perfectly.

Has this issue been resolved or could it be the same thing?

Thanks, David