GP2GP transfers deferred from 2006-07 DES

Electronic GP2GP transfers of patient records will not be part of the coming year’s direct enhanced service (DES) for information technology as originally proposed.

Connecting for Health’s (CfH) primary care clinical lead, Professor Mike Pringle said that, though the pilots testing the transfers were going well, the process could not be pushed.

“When it gets to more than one system, it gets very technical,” he told journalists at a media briefing with the clinical leads.

Professor Pringle predicted that incentives for the profession to implement electronic GP2GP record transfers would be part of the next DES devised to reward practices that improve their IT.

GP2GP record transfers are high on the profession’s wish list and the first transfer under CfH’s pilots was recorded last year in Gateshead. The next pilots will take place at Croydon, South London and the Isle of Wight.

Difficulties have been reported in ensuring the transfer of the large number of attachments GPs have to make to some patients’ records.

This year’s DES was first announced by the British Medical Association in December 2005 in the form of a proposal which included GP2GP transfers. Professor Pringle confirmed that the final four elements of the DES, available from April 2006, require GPs and GP practices to:

• Devise a plan around information governance, assess training needed and log training carried out;
• Prepare for an undergo accreditation for their data;
• Take part in maintaining a register of patients and feed good data into that register;
• Migrate to a hosted system.

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