Eighty-five GP practices are deploying a new electronic Lloyd George records service.
The fully managed service digitises, archives and hosts Lloyd George patient records.
The system was created through a partnership between St Helens & Knowsley Health Informatics Service and electronic document management supplier CCube Solutions.
Halton, Knowsley and St Helens clinical commissioning groups have bought the system for their 85 practices.
Neil Darvill, director of informatics at St Helens & Knowsley HIS, said the idea came about after developing a document management system for secondary care records a couple of years ago.
The HIS decided to apply the system to primary care where it was “snapped up”. About 20 of the 85 new customers have had e-LGS installed.
“We guarantee the quality of scanned records will be the same if not better than paper,” he said.
Authorised GPs and practice managers access the system via an icon on their desktop.
Once the Lloyd George record is scanned, the paperwork is destroyed and the original envelope is returned to the practice.
Grove House Practice in Runcorn, Cheshire, was the pilot site for the service and has digitised its entire Lloyd George library of 13,000 patient records.
Lead GP Dr David Wilson told EHI it had “completely revolutionised” his practice’s reception by freeing up at least 20 sq/m of space.
Two receptionists had been moved from a small clinical room back into the reception area, making the room available for patients.
Dr Wilson said he still referred to Lloyd George records a couple of times a week.
Previously this involved wading through a large dusty paper file, whereas now he could go online, search the record and find the necessary information in seconds.
The digital record is split into four chapters; patient correspondence; continuation cards; results; and summary reports.
If a patient transfers from a practice using e-LGS, their file is provided on CD to be printed off for their new practice. There is also a routine collection of data for new patients registering with an e-LGS practice.