GP2GP means GPs are increasingly receiving medical information
about newly-registered patients before their first consultation, says Liz Brown.

At Alma Road Surgery in Southampton Liz Brown is the summariser, registration, deduction and GP links clerk. She says: "It takes less time to summarise for such records and it is easier for the doctors, too.

"We deal with a lot of multiple problem patients at our practice and it is very useful to have information about these patients before they come in for their first consultation.

Under the paper-based system, for more dependant patients like this we actually take new patients' records up for the doctors to read as soon as we receive them. We don't have to do this when we receive a GP2GP record transfer because the record is already available electronically."

Liz adds: "Normally, we go through the paper summary and type up all the active problems manually. Now that the whole electronic record comes over it's easy to just validate the information that's already there. As I have been summarising for a while now, I'm quite quick to pick up if anything is missing. All of the immunisations come through, too, and this saves me a lot of work."

Burgess Road

Burgess Road Surgery went live with GP2GP a month before their colleagues at Alma Road. Hannah Brotherstone, one of three summarisers at the practice, says: "We feel fortunate to have been part of the early adopter phase for GP2GP. It's not difficult to use but with the volume of transfers still quite low we've appreciated the opportunity to learn about the functionality at our own pace."

Sandra Easdale finds summarising is now
a lot quicker as a result of GP2GP.

Fellow summariser Sandra Easdale adds: "As with other busy practices, we are constantly trying to keep up-to-date with our summarising. With GP2GP, we now ensure that as electronic health records come in, we 'read code receipt' them. We are then able to search for these records easily and ensure they are summarised as quickly as possible."

Practice Manager Sarah Day agrees that the new emphasis on validating information received in the electronic health record rather than re-entering information from a paper record promises to be a major benefit. "We are anticipating a lot of time savings when more practices come on board. We can just focus on identifying anything that's missing and improving the overall quality of the record that's been received."

GP2GP is delivering major benefits for administrative staff within GP practices. These benefits are set to increase as more practices receive GP2GP during 2007 and as the number of GP2GP electronic record transfers increases.

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