New Darlington walk-in centre uses EHR

The centre, at Doctor Piper House, Darlington, County Durham, incorporates the Phoenix Partnership’s SystmOne Emergency software to store, process and transfer patient data.

“The essential part of a walk-in centres is that any member of the public can walk in from the street with minor ailments,” Anthony Bryan, IM&T manager at Darlington PCT told EHI Primary Care. “It’s effectively nurse-led, not GP led. So we have a piece of software in there for nurses’ triage with the Phoenix Partnership forming the hub."

Another benefit of the system installed is continuity. “The data is stored off-site and in a data repository,” says Bryan. “So the infrastructure that we needed to put into the PCT was to a minimum. The data is secure. There’s resilience built in."

Bryan also mentioned that the new systems had to be easy to use to train nursing and other staff in a very short time.

“We know that The Phoenix Partnership is the second choice of provider from our Local Service Provider (LSP)," said Bryan, who expressed his hopes that this would mean the centre can be easily integrated into the National Programme for IT.

Frank Hester, co-founder of The Phoenix Partnership, said that he was  “SystmOne Emergency’s sophisticated infrastructure guarantees that the system will respond to the most demanding of clinicans’ requirements."

The centre is also about to open a new referral centre to treat skin complaints. “Effectively we have got a second service for dermatology opening on Tuesday morning, run by two GPs,” “They are going to use [SystmOne’s] GP clinical suite. It should be able to link photographs to records."

As well as SystmOne, the centre also features electronic display screens displaying patients’ names and the number of the room they are to attend, and a wide-screen TV playing health promotion DVDs.

The walk-in centre, which is the third in the North-East after Newcastle and York city centres, supports Darlington’s 11 GP practices and is open until 10pm each day, including weekends.

Alan Milburn, MP for Darlington, who opened the centre, said: “The walk-in centre symbolises the sort of health service we can have and need to have in the future. It shows that if you put the money in you get a good return back and end up with an important service which is in tune with how people live their lives."

Above: Alan Milburn, MP for Darlington (left), with two members of Darlington PCT, opens Doctor Piper house.