West London GPs start switch to SystmOne

Hammersmith and Fulham GPs have begun a wholesale switch to TPP due to be completed by next March.

None of the 31 practices in the Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group currently use TPP’s SystmOne, but are split between Emis and INPS systems.

GP at the Old Oak Surgery in Hammersmith, Dr Samuel Olatigbe, said the practice was an Emis LV user and switched to SystmOne last week along with three other practices.

These four are the first of a phased roll-out of SystmOne across the CCG due to be complete by March 2014.

“The previous system was very slow, not versatile, not interactive and had just outlived its usefulness,” he explained.

Dr Olatigbe is the IT lead for one of three networks of practices in the CCG area and sits on the IT sub-committee of the CCG board.

A meeting of the network leads revealed a desire to move to a single system, which went to consultation with GPs.

He said the group’s 31 practices voted overwhelmingly to move to a single system and more than three-quarters voted to use SystmOne, despite none of them using it already.

Dr Olatigbe said the main driver for practices in deciding which system to choose was the need to be able to easily view each other’s records.

“In the CCG we are working together in a very collaborative manner,” he said.

“What a GP colleague does down the road will affect me and if I’m seeing a patient he or she has seen I need to be able to see the records.”

Neighbouring area Hounslow had already made the move to TPP, which also influenced their decision.

Dr Olatigbe acknowledged that a wholesale switch to a different system is painful for practices, but said this pain is temporary and outweighed by the advantages of all using the same software.

GPs were impressed that SystmOne was very interactive, user friendly and interoperable and all practices had agreed to the change.

“If they decide not to move the CCG will be prepared to support them in any way they want, except some might find it difficult to integrate with other GPs around them,” he explained.

Three other London CCGs – Ealing, Central London and West London – have reportedly also voted to switch to SystmOne, but have not publicly announced their intentions.

Emis and INPS have raised concerns about the transparency of the voting process in all four CCGs.