Three GP IT systems used by more than 600 GP practices in England are incompatible with current activity in the Connecting for Health’s GP2GP record transfer project because of the version of Read codes used in the systems.
TPP, Healthy Software and Seetec Enterprise all use Read code version 3 compared to version 2 used by the other suppliers in England. EHI Primary Care understands that it is currently not possible for codes to be translated from version 3 to 2 or vice versa, and as a result practices using the three systems will be unable to send or receive records electronically from the vast majority of practices in England which use version 2.
In an article for EHI Primary Care Professor Mike Pringle, joint GP clinical lead for Connecting for Health, says that TPP have done a version of GP2GP from TPP to TPP and should be able to receive records from other systems although a statement issued to EHI Primary Care by TPP and CSC makes it clear that transfers in both directions are currently not possible.
In his article Professor Pringle adds: “TPP will therefore not be compliant with GP2GP for some time.”
TPP is the most prominent of the three suppliers to be using Read code version 3, with more than 500 practices now using the system, the majority of which have been installed as part of its local service provider (LSP) contracts in the North East and Eastern clusters. Last month it was also announced that TPP’s SystmOne is also to be offered to practices in the North West cluster by LSP CSC.
A joint statement from TPP and CSC issued to EHI Primary Care states: “SystmOne users are able to perform GP2GP transfers from one SystmOne practice to another SystmOne practice. In excess of 6,000 of these transfers are completed every month. These transfers allow practices to register a patient and view their full record, complete with attachments, instantly. This procedure is currently undergoing NHS CfH accreditation. The use of Read 3 coding provides clinicians with much greater granularity of information than Read 2.
“At present there is no approved method to support Read 3 to Read 2 mapping, or vice versa. As a result it is not currently possible for SystmOne users to perform GP2GP transfers from other systems to SystmOne for the reason stated. If a solution were introduced which supported this reverse mapping, CSC would work with TPP to understand the requirements and how these could be met to support GP2GP transfers between SystmOne and non-SystmOne practices.”
Healthy Software currently has 65 practices in England, Wales and Northern Ireland using its Crosscare system, also based on Read codes version 3.
Rob England, managing director of Healthy Software, told EHI Primary Care that although it might be possible for Healthy Software practices to receive records rom practices using version 2 it would not be possible to send Healthy Software to other practices electronically.
He added: “You can’t go backwards from Read code version 3 to Read code version 2 without a serious risk to the data so there’s not a lot that can be done about it until everyone else moves to SNOMED.”
Seetec Enterprise, which is used by 65 practices in England, is also based on Read code version 3. Nick Swift, development director for Seetec, also confirmed the system would be unable to become GP2GP compliant as things stood.
He told EHI Primary Care: “We weren’t involved in the initial pilot sites for that very reason.”