NHS Portsmouth has launched a primary care information portal to provide a single source of information for GPs, other primary care professionals and primary care trust staff.
The portal, formally launched on 1 October, is hosted on the NHS N3 network and gives access to a huge range of local NHS information including care pathways, referral forms and the local hospital’s clinical services directory.
Steve Guthrie, IT manager for NHS Portsmouth, told EHI Primary Care that the idea for the portal came from discussions between the PCT’s practice based commissioning lead and local practices.
He added “The feedback was that the GPs didn’t like the way the PCT communicated with them as they felt it was not efficient with different versions of information floating around and information not presented in a well organised way.”
The PCT approached the GP practices to find what they would like from the trust and the result was a formation of a Primary Care Information Portal Steering Group, chaired by local GP Dr Jonathan Price.
The PCT decided to set up the portal on the N3 network to avoid the need for GPs to go through an additional authentification process to access information. Information available from the portal includes PCT procedures for handling IT problems, forms and details from the PCT’s contracting department, a drug formulary, information for community and practice nurses, information governance details and so on.
The PCT agreed a content management process with “information gatekeepers” from each team chosen to keep their information up-to-date.
Guthrie added: “You now know you can always find the latest version of any document as it will be on the portal.”
Guthrie said the PCT and local GP commissioning groups also saw the future potential of the portal for sharing information within and between consortia.
The trust is planning to launch a secure area of the portal to enable exchange of confidential business information by consortia such as contract management data and information on commissioning decisions.
Guthrie said the portal had been a collaborative effort between the PCT and GPs and had also been backed by funding from the Portsdown Commissioning Group which had invested some of its PBC savings to get the portal up and running.
Guthrie said the portal would continue to evolve as the needs of stakeholders changed, particularly in relation to the white paper.
He added: “This will be their tool and we very much hope that it will justify forming a key part of the information management strategies for their practices and teams.”
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