GP system users ‘super’ group to be formed

A new user group covering all the suppliers involved in the GP Systems of Choice (GPSoC) initiative is being set up by NHS Connecting for Health and guidance on the minimum infrastructure required under the initiative is to be issued soon.

The GPSoC proposals, designed to counter concerns from practices that they face pressure to switch suppliers, were announced in March and negotiations with suppliers and the Treasury have continued since then.

The scheme provides capital funding to primary care trusts for hardware upgrades from April this year and will also mean that ongoing revenue costs for existing systems will be met directly by CfH subject to negotiations with suppliers and Treasury approval.

Dr Gillian Braunold, CfH joint national GP clinical lead, said she believed some suppliers would be signing their agreements “very shortly” and when the scheme had received Treasury approval the costs of the licensing would be picked up by CfH with the money sent to PCTs to cover the costs when practices’ contracts come up for renewal.

She told EHI Primary Care: “In most cases that will be April next year but some people’s contracts fall at different times during the year.”

Dr Braunold said negotiations were going well and she was very comfortable with the progress made so far.

She added: “Everybody’s doing this with a lot of goodwill and nobody wants to see this fail. The most important thing is for people to feel reassured that their systems, that have very good functionality, do have a place within Connecting for Health.”

Dr Braunold said she and Professor Mike Pringle, also joint GP clinical lead for CfH, had written to all the suppliers involved in the GPSoC initiative to invite them to nominate a representative from their user group to join a Primary Care Existing Systems Pan-User Group.

She said: “Existing systems have a place and we want to make use of the expertise of the current systems and their representatives in ensuring that their interfaces are optimised.” Dr Braunold said the leading system suppliers had all nominated representatives but she would still like to hear from anyone involved with some of the smaller suppliers as some of the companies did not have a user group and had been unable to suggest a representative. The group will also include representatives from the joint BMA/RCGP IT committee.

The first meeting will take place in July and items CfH have placed on the agenda include the common user interface and Choose and Book. “I am sure the users will also have issues that they would like to bring.” Dr Braunold added.

The GPSoC initiative links payments to suppliers to a “maturity model” or “ladder of interoperability” with six levels starting at level 0, covering RFA99 accreditation, QMAS and Quality and Outcomes Framework compliance and compliance with information governance standards, with levels 1-5 adding additional elements of the National Programme for IT.

Guidance for PCTs on the minimum infrastructure required to support each GPSoC level is almost ready to be sent out to PCTs according to Dr Braunold who said the money for the infrastructure was already available to PCTs. She added: “This money is to make sure that the technical environment is in place to deliver the functionality.”

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