Emis eyes up iSoft estate

Emis expects to win around two-thirds of GP practices using an iSoft clinical system before support for the products ends next March.

CSC confirmed to EHI last September that it was withdrawing former iSoft products Synergy, Premiere and Ganymede from the primary care market.

The company said at the time that it would continue to provide support for the systems until at least 31 October 2013 for practices in England and Northern Ireland and March 2014 for practices in Wales.

In a six-month trading update released today, Emis Group says 174 former iSoft practices have migrated to Emis systems during the first half of the year and it ultimately expects to win approximately two-thirds of the iSoft estate.

A number of the iSoft practices are in Wales where NHS Wales has begun rolling out a centrally hosted IT service to its GPs with the first Emis Web practice going live last month.

The group update says the roll-out of its newest system, Emis Web, continues with 2,580 practices now live, an increase of nearly 1000 over the past six months. There are also 948 unfulfilled orders for Emis Web and 1,663 GP practices in the familiarisation service.

It says the renewal of the GP Systems of Choice framework, which funds GP IT systems for more than 80% of practices in England, is progressing as expected. The existing GPSoC agreement has been extended to the end of the year with the option of a further three months’ extension.

Emis’ interim chief executive Chris Spencer was appointed to the post permanently this month following the departure of Sean Riddell.

Spencer said the company had been encouraged by recent comments from health secretary Jeremy Hunt, when he said the NHS needs to work differently to respond to the changing needs of the population, making joined-up services the norm, not the exception.