GP practices in Derbyshire have become the first to pilot electronic patient records transfers using GP2GP using the clinical software system SystmOne have.
GP2GP allows practices to electronically transfer patients´ records to a new surgery should the patient decide to move - no matter which system the receiving practice uses.
Records should be available at the new practice within 24 hours of the patient registering - but transfers will normally be a lot quicker than this, according to NHS Connecting for Health.
During the pilot, a minimum of ten consecutive successful patient transfers per system type will need to occur. If the pilot is successful, NHS Connecting for Health will approve the system for full roll-out.
A total of nine practices are involved in the scheme launched by SystemOne manufacturers TPP last month.
EMIS LV 5.2 and INPS Vision 3 have already rolled out GP2GP, and NHS Connecting for Health figures suggest some 4.956 practices - 56% - in England are already using GP2GP and about 10,000 transfers are completed every week.
