New contractual requirements came into force from 1st April 2014 requiring that GP practices should make available a statement of intent in relation to the following IT developments:

• Referral Management
• Electronic Appointment Booking
• Online Booking of repeat prescriptions
• Summary Care Record
• GP2GP transfers
• Patient Access to records online

Referral management

The practice will ensure that the NHS Number as the primary identifier in all NHS clinical correspondence will be used.

Electronic appointment booking

Practices are required to promote and offer the facility for all patients, who wish to, to book, view, amend, cancel and print appointments online.

We currently offer the facility for booking and cancelling appointments online using the Online Services.

Online booking of repeat prescriptions

Practices are required to promote and offer the facility for all patients, who wish to, to order online, view and print a list of their repeat prescriptions for necessary drugs, medicines or appliances.

We currently offer the facility for ordering repeat prescriptions online using the Online Services.

Interoperable records/Summary Care Record

GP practices are required to provide an automated upload of any changes to a patient’s summary information, at least once every working day. The requirement is on the basis of the current definition of the SCR, i.e. the core SCR record contains medications, allergies and adverse reactions and uploaded on the basis of implied patient consent.

Additional information can only be uploaded with explicit patient consent and should be information required to support patient care in an emergency or urgent situation.

The SCR should only be viewed in emergency or urgent care settings with the explicit consent of the patient unless the patient is unable to give their consent (for example if they are unconscious).

This practice is fully compliant with the requirements to upload any changes to a patient’s summary information at least once every working day to the Summary Care Record.

If you do not want your medical records to be available in this way then you will need to let us know so that we can update your record.  You can do this via the ‘opt out form’ on our website.

GP2GP Record Transfers

There is a contractual requirement to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers. (This does not apply to patients who register on a temporary basis). This electronic transfer of records is known as GP2GP.

It is very important that you are registered with a doctor at all times.

If you leave your GP and register with a new GP, your medical records will be removed from your previous doctor and forwarded on to your new GP via NHS England.  It can take several weeks for your paper records to reach your new surgery.  With GP to GP record transfers, your electronic record is transferred to your new practice much sooner.

The practice confirms that GP2GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system unless the receiving practice’s computer system does not allow or provide such transfers.

Patient Access to their GP record online

Practices are required to promote and offer the facility for patients to view online, export or print any summary information from their records i.e. medications, allergies, adverse reactions and any additional information agreed between the GP and patient. Practices are also required to promote and offer online access to the detailed coded record.

The practice has made available to patients (who have Online Services) to view their records.