Survey shows falling GP support for NPfIT

Support and enthusiasm for the National Programme for IT among GPs has fallen by more than 50% since the programme was launched five years ago according to a survey of more than 1,000 doctors commissioned by EHI Primary Care.

The latest of eight surveys on NPfIT conducted by the healthcare online research organisation Medix showed that 30% of GPs now believe NPfIT is an important priority for the NHS compared with 67% five years ago and 23% are enthusiastic about it compared with 56% in 2003.

The deterioration in support for the NHS IT programme is reflected in further findings from the survey which show three out of four GPs think the NHS Care Records Service will lessen patient confidentiality, nine out of ten say that Choose and Book increases the time dealing with referral and 78% of GPs report that they do not consider NPfIT to be a good use of NHS resources.

Connecting for Health said it engaged in active and on-going consultation with a wide range of clinicians and that the results of the survey did not reflect the general picture on the ground.

A statement issued to EHI Primary Care states: “"We take the views of the public, patients and front-line NHS staff very seriously. We would view these results in light of what patients tell us. For example on the positive contribution Choose and Book has made to patient referral times and the early signs from those areas introducing theSummary Care Record about the improvement this will make to patient safety.

"In the light of all of this wider experience and evidence, the results of the Medix survey do not appear to reflect the general picture on the ground or chime with other recent comprehensive surveys.”

The survey was carried out from 30 October to 5 November this year and was completed by 1064 doctors of which 44% were GPs and 56% other doctors. It found that while most doctors (55%) believe NPfIT will improve clinical care in the longer term and 47% believe the CRS will enable clinicians to make better decisions, only 1% rate the progress made so far as good or excellent.

Dr Simon Eccles, Connecting for Health’s clinical director, was among those who completed the survey. He commented: “The National Programme for IT [NPfIT] is potentially the biggest advance in the way we deliver the health of this nation since the founding of the NHS. Sadly that is not widely appreciated. The programme is being actively obstructed by a minority of GPs for essentially selfish reasons.”

The survey results suggest that clinical engagement in the NPfIT remains low. Only 8% of GPs reported that they had received a lot of information about the NHS IT programme and only 8% described the information they had received from the Department of Health as reliable or accurate. Only 5% of GPs agreed that they had received adequate personal consultation about NPfIT. A total of 23% of GPs said they were not at all engaged in the project and only 2% said they were very engaged.

Dr John Lockley, a GP in Ampthill, Bedfordshire and vice-chairman of the iSoft User Group, commented: “NPfIT should have involved ordinary doctors – and in particular the doctors’ computer user groups – from the very start. These groups correctly identified (very early on) many of the subject areas that have subsequently caused problems.”

A total of 59% of GPs who completed the survey said they will not or are unlikely to upload a patient’s clinical details without specific consent. Main concerns were access by public officials from outside health or social care (57%) and outsiders hacking into the system (53%).

GP Dr Simon Hayhoe commented: “I remain seriously worried about a government-controlled database containing medical records. This (like the DNA database) can easily be given to EEC or other agencies without agreement from those on the database, so that a patient’s details could be accessed by many people all over the world.”

On Choose and Book the survey found that 49% of GPs are using the e-booking system for more than 40% of their referrals. However more than 90% said that it increases the time taken to deal with a referral and 69% said it either made no difference or was detrimental to patient care.

Dr Popple, a GP in Tamworth, commented: “Patients rarely want to choose away from local provider, slow system adds a lot of time to consultations and patient phone lines are inadequately manned.”

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