The target date for the implementation of Choose and Book has been moved back again, this time to March 2007.
Margaret Edwards, director of access at the Department of Health, has written to strategic health authority and primary care trust chief executives this week to set out the latest targets on the Choose and Book scheme.
In her letter Edwards says that the requirement is for 90% of GP referrals to be booked through Choose and Book by March 2007. The plan to include referrals from dentists in the targets has also been dropped. The original plan was for all appointments to be booked through Choose and Book by December 2005.
In November Sir Nigel Crisp, NHS chief executive told the Public Accounts Committee that Choose and Book was “running about 12 months late,” giving a new likely implementation date of December 2006.
The letter outlining the extra three months breathing space for PCTs and SHAs is accompanied by more interim targets on Choose and Book.
Edwards says all acute trusts that are not able to implement an integrated patient administration system for Choose and Book are expected to ‘go live’ with indirectly bookable services (IBS) in all specialities by the end of March this year.
IBS is a standalone fix that allows acute trusts whose PAS systems are not compliant with Choose and Book to make electronic bookings.
The letter says PCTs will be expected to submit monthly trajectories on their progress towards the March 2007 deadline and will also still be able to claim the third incentive payment from the original Choose and Book incentive scheme which offers £100,000 if PCTs achieve 90% booking through integrated booking, not IBS, by December 2006 at the latest.
The letter adds: “There are however a small number of trusts that for valid technical/commercial reasons will not be able to achieve a fully compliant integrated solution during 2006. These organisations will have explicit exemption agreed with NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) but will still need to achieve 90% via IBS.”
Only one PCT, Durham Dales, was able to claim the first incentive payment for achieving 50% of bookings through Choose and Book by the end of October 2005 and none met the December target of 80% of bookings through the service by the end of December.
According to latest Connecting for Health figures a total of 94,637 bookings had been made via Choose and Book by 24 January. A total of 9.5 million outpatient appointments are booked each year.
Links
Margaret Edwards letter [PDF]