A much-anticipated report on the future of primary care IT systems in Scotland has been delayed, and will undergo further work before completion.
The delay has been criticised by the British Medical Association’s Scottish General Practitioner Committee which says GP practices are keenly awaiting the findings of the report.
Dr Stuart Scott, chairman of the SGPC’s IT sub-committee, told EHI Primary Care that SGPC had originally been told the report would be ready to go to the Scottish Executive’s e-health strategy board at the end of June and then understood that had been put back to the e-health strategy board meeting last week.
The report, which is being carried out by Deloitte, is to look at how systems such as GPASS, currently run by NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) will be managed in future in the context of the electronic health record.
Paul Gray, director or primary and community care for the Scottish Executive Health Department, told MSPs in May that the study was due to report in June and the e-health strategy board would consider it then.
However a spokesperson for the Scottish Executive told EHI Primary Care that last week’s e-health strategy board had only seen the report in draft form.
He added: “The e-health strategy board considered the emerging findings and agreed that there should be further discussions with interested parties before the report is finalised.”
Mr Gray told MSPs in May that the report would look at whether GPASS should still be run and managed by NSS when there were at least four other commercial competitors in the marketplace.
Dr Scott said the Scottish Executive had been putting pressure on NHS boards to await the outcome of the report before moving ahead with GP practice proposals to move from the GPASS computer system.
Earlier this year the Scottish local medical committees’ conference called for GPASS to be abandoned, claiming that the system was not fit for purpose and had failed general practice and calling for central funding to be made available for practices to switch from GPASS to another system.
GPASS is used by around 85% of practices in Scotland and about a quarter of those practices have submitted a business case to move to another supplier under system choice proposals announced a year ago.
Dr Scott said practices in Grampian and Tayside NHS boards were beginning to move away from GPASS but other health boards were not progressing plans yet and the report was keenly awaited by everyone.
Dr Scott added: “We hope it says what GPs have realised for many years which is that GPASS doesn’t cut the mustard.”
Dr Scott said SGPC had written to Kevin Woods, chairman of the e-health strategy board, to ask to see sight of the report but had not yet received a reply.
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