GPES reaches more milestones

The General Practice Extraction Service Independent Advisory Group has approved its first data extract request.

GPES is a centrally managed primary care data service that will extract information from all GP practices in England for approved customers to benefit patient care.

All requests for data extraction must first be approved the independent board, led by Neil Serougi.

An Information Centre spokesperson said the group has met three times so far and has considered two customer requests.

One request received a recommendation to proceed and the other request was referred back for further information before resubmission to the IAG.

The HSCIC said details of the requests would be published on its website in September.

The spokesperson said the extraction service is still in the development and implementation phase.

Business process testing has begunand system development work is underway with the contracted IT service providers to create the query and extraction services needed to form GPES.

Live data extraction has not yet started and is planned to start during quarter one and two of next year.

A recent press release from CSC says the contract it has signed for GPES is worth up to £4.6m. CSC was the last GP system supplier to sign up to deliver the service.

The contracts for each GP IT system supplier to develop the software needed to extract and communicate data to the information centre can be found online, but their value has been redacted as commercially confidential.

However, funding of approximately £40 million has been earmarked by the government for the implementation and operation of GPES up until March 2015.