TPP to set up independent user group

Primary care IT system supplier TPP is encouraging its customers to join a new national user group.

The group, which will be independent of TPP, will supply representatives for national IT bodies and provide a formal mechanism for users to have an input into the development of TPP’s SystmOne.

Dr John Parry, clinical director of TPP and a GP in Keighley, West Yorkshire, said the number of TPP users meant they were now entitled to a place on the joint IT committee of the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners but had been unable to take it up because there had been no national user group. “That’s the first thing that must spring from this,” he told EHI Primary Care.

Dr Parry also said he had been representing TPP users on Connecting for Health’s (CfH) GP Pan User Group but that it was more appropriate for the place to be taken by a user group representative.

TPP says the user group will be independent of the company, its local service provider Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and CfH although CfH is offering its support in the establishment of the group.

Graham Spearing, from CfH’s primary care deployment support team told users at a TPP conference last week that the user group was essential to the future development of TPP products.

He added: “It’s vital that you have a say in the way your system is developed.”

TPP users interested in joining the group or finding out more should email cfh.systmoneusergroup@nhs.net.