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Guidance for GP practices on system choice from the General Practitioners Committee and the Royal College of General PractitionersP

September 2004

The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) has recently issued some ‘initial guidance for existing system suppliers’ (www.npfit.nhs.uk/docs/NPfITsuppliersguide.pdf - download here). The guidance describes the role of existing suppliers in future NHS IT provision.

The GPC has established a joint IT committee with the RCGP (JGPITC) that has representatives from each of the main system supplier user groups. The joint committee has enabled a more co-ordinated approach so that GPs can stand together and safeguard all their interests. This committee continues to monitor the NPfIT and report back to its parent bodies. As a result of concerns expressed by grassroots GPs this committee reached agreement with the NPfIT earlier in the year and issued a joint statement - read more here - that confirmed that;

• GPs will not be forced to move to any system that has functionality that is less than their existing system.
• That moves to new systems will not be contemplated until data migration issues have been resolved.
• That the JGPITC is the body that will assess, on behalf of GPs, whether new systems are fit for purpose.
• The GPC has agreed guidance with the Department of Health on funding for general practice IT systems under the new GMS contract. We recommend practices and LMCs make themselves familiar with this guidance, which is available on the website here.

In addition;

• The National Audit Office has announced that it will review NPfIT. The JGPITC welcomes this decision. The GPC and the joint IT committee have been assured that they will have an opportunity to input into the official report.
• Progress on extending the functionality of our existing systems to include support for GP2GP transfer, electronic prescribing and e-booking is ongoing.
• Representatives nominated by the JGPITC have begun to have meaningful discussions with LSPs about the development of general practice computing.
• Finally the ‘initial guidance for existing system suppliers’ referred to above states that existing systems may not necessarily be replaced but could be integrated into future LSP offerings.

Given the above we agree it is sensible that users of systems are aware of their rights under the nGMS contract and under the agreed position with NPfIT. It is inconceivable that the GPC or the RCGP would stand by and allow the rich functionality of the systems currently in use in general practice, nor the enormous investment GP users have made in pushing these developments, nor the data they contain, to be squandered. The GPC will continue to demand the rights it has been granted under the nGMS agreement with the Government but it will do so on the principles above and without favouring any specific commercial interest.