PCTI has been awarded a contract to supply its document management software Docman, Intellisense and EDT to 66 GP practices in Surrey.

The contract, worth almost £325,000, means all 136 practices in Surrey will have the document management and messaging solution installed in their surgeries.

PCTI said the key to the project was the roll-out of EDT. This will allow documents from the local acute trust to be delivered directly into Docman’s workflow engine iWorkflow.

Remaining hard-copy documents will be automatically filed using Intellisense to automatically search documents for keywords using OCR.

Christine Ratcliffe, associate director of knowledge management at NHS Surrey, said the system would support acute trusts in providing electronic discharge summaries to GP practices within 24 hours.

She added: “This will reduce costs across Surrey’s entire health economy and contribute to environmental sustainability through significant reduction in the volume of paper used.”

Ratcliffe said the procurement would mean that Docman would be rolled-out as a standard solution across those practices not already using it in Surrey.

She added: “Docman enhances patient care and has proved to be very effective for the practices where it was deployed initially.

"It has improved administrative processes and patient safety, by securely storing and offering faster access to a more accurate health record.”

Ric Thompson, managing director of PCTI, said the company was delighted to have been awarded the contract from one of the largest primary care trusts in the country.

He added: “There are already a number of hospitals that have chosen EDT server as their preferred method for communicating electronically with GP practices in Surrey.

"Docman and EDT will provide a demonstrable return on investment within the first few months following go live.”