New contractual requirements require GP Practices to make available a statement of intent in relation to the following IT developments:

• GP to GP Record Transfers
• Patient Online Access to Their GP Record
• Data for commissioning and other secondary care purposes

The same contractual obligations require that we have a statement of intent regarding these developments in place and publicised.

GP to GP Record Transfers

NHS England require practices to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers (not for temporary registration).

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 your paper records up to two weeks 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 GP to GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system.

Patient Online Access to Their GP Record

NHS England require practices to promote and offer the facility to enable patients online access to appointments, prescriptions, and allergies and adverse reactions.

We currently offer the facility for booking and cancelling appointments and also for ordering your repeat prescriptions and viewing a summary of your medical records online. If you do not already have a user name and password for this system – please register your interest with our reception staff.

Data for Commissioning and other Secondary Care Purposes

It is already a requirement of the Health and Social Care Act that practices must meet the reasonable data requirements of commissioners and other health and social care organisations through appropriate and safe data sharing for secondary uses, as specified in the technical specification for care data.

At our practice we have specific arrangements in place to allow patients to “opt out” of care data which allows for the removal of data from the practice. Please see the page about care data on our website.

The Practice confirm these arrangements are in place and that we undertake annual training and audits to ensure that all our data is handled correctly and safely via the Information Governance Toolkit.