CSC has yet to sign its contract with Connecting for Health to take part in the GP Systems of Choice initiative, just five weeks before the majority of practices are expected to switch to the scheme.
CSC plans to supply TPP’s SystmOne under GPSoC and was one of eight IT suppliers selected by CfH last July to take part in the GPSoC initiative
The six other existing GP system suppliers accepted onto the GPSoC framework, EMIS, INPS, Healthy Software, Microtest, Seetec and iSoft, signed their contracts in the autumn, but CSC has yet to do so.
A spokesperson for CFH confirmed to EHI Primary Care that the contract had not been signed, although she said CfH expected it to be agreed shortly.
CSC was unable to confirm whether it expected to sign its contract by 1 April but told EHI Primary Care: “We are currently in advanced discussions with Connecting for Health around TPP, when these are finalised we will be looking to sign our GPSoC contract.”
CSC will only be offering SystmOne under GPSoC in the London and Southern clusters. Practices in the North, Midlands and East Programme for IT, where CSC is the local service provider, will be offered SystmOne under an LSP contract if they wish to switch to the system.
CfH said practices in the London and southern clusters already using SystmOne would continue to be funded by their PCTs until the contract with CSC was signed when they could switch to central funding.
CfH is keen to see as many practices as possible switch to GPSoC contracts by 1 April and has changed its implementation procedures so that practices will be signed up by default unless they choose to opt-out.