GPs concerned by NHS computer deal

11:29am Wednesday 12th December 2007

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A row has erupted between York doctors and regional health bosses after it was revealed hundreds of thousands of pieces of data from vital patient records are at risk of being lost forever.

GPs in York claimed they were not consulted before North Yorkshire & York Primary Care Trust (PCT) signed up to a new strategy aimed at changing the computer system used in the city's surgeries.

According to the doctors, up to five per cent of data could be lost when the patient records are transferred - the equivalent of one surgery losing everything that was put on the system in the past 15 months.

Richard Smith, chairman of York's patient forum, accused health bosses of "playing with people's health". He said: "This is not good news for patients and we are not happy that there seems to have been no consultation with the patient forums.

"It looks like it's cost-saving again by the PCT, but it will cause a lot of problems for patients, doctors and medical practitioners.

"They are playing with people's health and it is very worrying."

Dr Brian McGregor, of Gale Farm Surgery, in York, said: "If data is lost then patients' medical histories won't be complete and this will cause a lot of problems.

"Everybody is fairly concerned about it. We don't know what might be lost - it might be important consultant letters, or maybe ten years of blood pressure readings."

Eighty per cent of the 102 practices covered by North Yorkshire & York PCT currently use the system EMIS.

But under a new strategy agreed last month, the PCT aims to have 70 per cent of practices transferred to a new package, called SystmOne, by 2009.

The £10,000 cost must be met by GP surgeries, although there will be funding available from the PCT.

Dr McGregor, who is also vice-chairman of the Local Medical Committee, said he feared all GP surgeries in York would now be forced to switch to a system that he believed was inferior.

He said: "It would be an enforced change from a system that works well and is ahead of the game to a system that is behind the game.

"Any other health authority would brand York as a centre of excellence for promoting communication, but they want to throw all that away.

"At the moment, all consultant letters are transferred to the GP records at the click of a button, but with the new system we would have to revert to using snail mail."

But a spokesperson for NHS Yorkshire and the Humber said the new system would allow the sharing of clinical information in this way and said the aim was to deliver "new, integrated IT systems and services to help modernise the NHS".

She also claimed there would be no data lost from patient records during the transfer process and no GPs would be forced to change systems.

An urgent meeting has been called between the local medical committee, the PCT managers and GPs in a bid to settle the dispute.