IT Matters

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
• On line Booking of repeat prescription
• Summary Care Record
• GP2GP transfer
• Patient Access to records
• Enable patient feedback (FFT)

Please find below details of 3W Health’s stance with regards to these developments:-

Referral management 

All practices must include the NHS Number as the primary identifier in all NHS clinical correspondence issued by the practice.

3W Health includes NHS numbers on all NHS correspondence.

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 on-line.

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 on-line and via email.

Interoperable records/Summary Care Record

Practices are required to enable successful automated uploads of any changes to a patient’s summary information, at least on a daily basis to the Summary Care record.

Having your Summary Care Record available will help anyone treating you without your full medical record. They will have access to information about any medication you may be taking and any drugs that you have a recorded allergy or sensitivity to.

3W Health is already live with SCR. However, if you do not want your medical records to be available in this way and have not already informed the practice then you will need to let us know, in order for us to update your record. You can do this via the ‘opt out form’ on our website or by completing a form in the surgery.

GP2GP record transfers

There is a requirement for GP Practices to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers.

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 forwarded to your new GP via NHS England. The GP2GP system transfers your electronic record to your new practice within 24hrs.

3W Health confirms that GP2GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system.

Patient access to their GP record

Practices are required to promote and offer the facility for patients to view online, export or print any summary of information from their records relating to medications, allergies, adverse reactions and any other items/date such as ‘additional’ record elements which has been agreed between the practice and the patient.