Keep old records when migrating, BMA warns

GP representatives have issued advice to practices considering moving to central servers, including guidance about migration of patient lists.

The British Medical Association’s General Practitioner Committee ‘strongly recommends’ that practices arrange for a recent backup tape to be loaded onto the central server they are considering switching to before committing to the system change so that the practice can view and use their data on the new system.

The GPC advice adds: “This will enable then to assess any data loss and also compare functionalities side by side. Remembering the recent CfH server failures in Kent, they will also need to be fully satisfied about backup and disaster recovery arrangements.”

The advice also claims that some surgeries are only having their active patient list migrated when moving to central server systems, with the health records of deducted, dead or temporary patients left out.

It states that in this case it is essential that the LSP and PCT maintains the original local server for the foreseeable future for research, medico-legal and audit and patient safety issues.

The advice adds: “These records must be able to be accessed as and when necessary for the foreseeable future. If these records are not transferred to the new system the only record of the GPs actions will be on the old system. Protection of such data is an nGMS contract requirement.”

However a spokesperson for NHS Connecting for Health told EHI Primary Care that ‘all relevant data’ is migrated to the new system. He added: “In the period immediately following migration to a new system, a practice may retain its old system to provide ongoing access to its old data if required. The data from the practice’s old system, together with its associated audit trail, is also extracted from the old system and stored securely in the event that the practice needs to access this information in its original format in the future.

“Discussions are underway with suppliers to provide a cost effective method for practices to gain access to and view old records and their associated audit trail once the old system has been decommissioned.”

EHI Primary Care asked the four leading primary care IT suppliers to comment on the GPC’s advice.

A spokesman for INPSs said that when a practice moves from its LAN-based Vision system to its hosted environment, the entire database is transferred including the audit trail and all patients, including those transferred out and deceased.

He added: “We also transfer all patients’ details when a new customer migrates to Vision from a competitor’s system.”

TPP referred the enquiry to Accenture, the local service provider for the north east and eastern clusters which announced last month that it has completed its 200th deployment of SystmOne GP in the two clusters.

Accenture told EHI Primary Care: “Data migration for practices moving to central servers includes active and inactive lists. Additionally we work with the PCT to ensure that GPs can continue to access their original records (including audit logs) as required to meet audit and legal obligations.”

iSOFT and EMIS told EHI Primary Care that migrations include all deducted, dead and temporary patients.