Treasury decision on GPSoC still pending

A decision on the full business case for GP Systems of Choice (GPSoC) is still awaited from the Treasury, Connecting for Health’s joint GP clinical lead, Dr Gillian Braunold, said last week.

Addressing the British Computer Society Primary Health Care Specialist Group annual meeting, Dr Braunold, warned: “In the current political climate it’s not an easy thing for this to get through. Anything with ‘GP’ and ‘more money’ tends to get a ‘no’.”

However, she said the focus of the case was very much on the benefits for patients of enabling GPs to have a choice of system and a lot of hard work had gone into making the case.

The GPSoC initiative, first fleshed out in March this year, is broken down into two parts. Capital funding has been provided to PCTs from 5 April to enable practices’ hardware to be upgraded to meet and continue to meet minimum standards for infrastructure to set by Connecting for Health.

The business case relates to a plan for ongoing revenue costs for existing systems to be met directly by Connecting for Health. This element of the agreement is still subject to Treasury approval. When the initiative was first announced the hope was expressed that deal would be ready for roll out in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Twelve system suppliers are on the list to be covered by the initiative which is designed to enable GPs to choose between suppliers provided that they meet specified standards. The suppliers are: Accenture, Ascribe, Capital Care Alliance, CSC Alliance, EMIS, Fujitsu Alliance, Healthy Software, In Practice Systems, iSoft, Microtest, Seetec and The Phoenix Partnership.

Turning to Choose and Book, Dr Braunold gave an upbeat assessment of the rising uptake of the electronic booking service now used, she said, by 70% of GPs in England.

Ninety nine per cent of issues relating to Choose and Book were not about the technology but about how it was being implemented on the ground right down to issues such as whether enough extra phone lines had been ordered.

“It’s about local implementation and about change management,” she declared.

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