One third of PCT-practice agreements signed

  • 2 January 2009

Just over a third of primary care trust-practice agreements for the GP Systems of Choice framework had been signed by the end of the year, according to NHS Connecting for Health.

Latest figures published by the agency show that 2,514 agreements had been signed by 19 December out of a possible 7,519.

CfH had originally hoped that all agreements would be signed by the end of April 2008, but deadlines have slipped and the latest statistics show that progress towards achieving 100% sign up to the agreements is variable.

London is the worst performing strategic health authority, with only 94 agreements signed and 1,449 eligible GPSoC practices. Of 31 PCTs in London, 27 have yet to sign a single agreement – although London has set itself a target of signing up all practices by the end of February.

No SHA has signed up 100% of practices as yet, although two SHAs – East of England and South Central – aimed to do so by the end of October 2008 and three SHAs – Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands and the North East – set a target of signing up all practices by the end of 2008. A total of 14 PCTs have successfully signed up all practices.

GPs in some parts of England have claimed they are facing unworkable restrictions on the kind of third party IT they can use in their practices under the GPsoC PCT-practice agreements and GPs have been advised to negotiate over their terms.

Related articles

GPs face limits on third party add-ons

GPs advised to negotiate on IT service level agreements

Subscribe to our newsletter

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Sign up

Related News

GPs face EMIS IT outage at busiest time of the week

GPs face EMIS IT outage at busiest time of the week

An outage to the EMIS IT system caused “chaos” for GPs in England when access was cut off to appointment booking systems and patient records.
One in five GPs using AI tools in clinical practice, finds BMJ survey

One in five GPs using AI tools in clinical practice, finds BMJ survey

An online survey of UK GPs by the BMJ has revealed that one in five are using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT in clinical…
Midlands GP surgery reduces ‘8am rush’ through online triage

Midlands GP surgery reduces ‘8am rush’ through online triage

A GP practice in the West Midlands has reduced the '8am rush' for appointments by using an online patient triage solution.