Bolton GPs told to use only one IT system

GPs in Bolton are coming under pressure from their PCT to ditch their various practice IT systems and sign up with a single supplier.

One GP affected, speaking to E-Health Insider anonymously, said that Bolton PCT had convened a meeting of users of one system and that they were "strongly encouraging them" to move to Vision, from In Practice Systems.

They were told that it was cheaper and simpler overall to have one system and it was implied they had already agreed to migrate.

One problem caused by the switch would be migrating patient data from their system, which uses Read Codes V3, to Vision’s system, which uses Read Codes V2. The transfer would affect QoF data and the GP risked "losing an awful lot" of it.

The general consensus among GPs at the moment was that they are not going to respond to pressure from the PCT, he continued. "I think at the moment that GPs all feel much the same way."

The GP said that the practice "might consider changing again when the SNOMED comes out… If it looks if we could migrate without losing lots of data we would give it serious consideration."

Rob England, director of Healthy Software, whose Crosscare system is in use by a number of practices in Bolton PCT, told E-Health Insider: "The reality of the system is that the PCT have now taken a decision and they are now having to try and justify that. It goes against all advice that has been given to GPs by the BMA and the NPfIT. It flouts it completely."

England said that he was informing GPs that they didn’t have to change their systems. "All I can do is tell them the facts and make them aware of all the information."

Migrating the data from Read Codes V3 to V2 was like "if you take a jug of water and you try and pour it back into a glass… if you have a bucket for 50,000 codes you can’t put 250,000 codes into it," said England.

At Healthy Software’s annual user conference in April, GPs were told by Cheryl Cowley, from the GMS Payments team within NHS Connecting to Health, that there was no need for anybody to change their system providing that it was compliant with the requirements of the national programme.

Other IT systems used by GPs in Bolton include Synergy, manufactured by Torex but now owned by iSOFT.

If trying to persuade GPs to do something is like herding cats, the anonymous GP told E-Health Insider, then "the cats at the moment are being fed salmon, but the PCT is offering them Whiskas."

E-Health Insider have invited Bolton PCT to comment on their decision to ask GPs to move onto a single system.