Gpgv4 exec summary

GPGv4 -- Executive Summary

A recent joint review by representatives of the Department of Health Informatics Directorate and the BMA & RCGP Joint GP IT Committee (JGPITC) concluded that there was a continuing need for professionally owned, authoritative guidance to update the Good Practice Guidelines for GP electronic patient records v3.1 (GPGv3.1 2005). The new Good Practice Guidelines for GP electronic patient records v4 (GPGv4 2011) would act as a reference source of information for all those involved in developing, deploying and using general practice IT systems. GPGv4 would also need to maintain and update the link between earlier versions of the GPG and the GMS & PMS regulations.

The joint review of the scope and content of GPGv3.1 demonstrated the need for a complete re-write of the guidelines to include all the existing sections, and extend the scope to include new services (e.g. Summary Care Record, Electronic Prescription Service & GP2GP messaging) into the mainstream guidance. The review also concluded that there is a need to develop new guidance in areas such as high quality clinical records and data quality to facilitate records sharing, inter-operability and communication.

From a strategic perspective, GPs are increasingly likely to share their record systems with other health professionals and electronic patient records may have multiple contributors over time. For this reason the inter-operability of records and the quality of the health data they contain will be the central themes of the revised GPGv4, described within a clinical safety framework. The overall GPGv4 project brings together the various chapters and strands that will make up the guidance to ensure that our electronic patient records are "fit for sharing" in a modern NHS.

Principal areas covered in the GPGv4 project are organised under the following chapter headings;

  1. Strategic Context for the Good Practice Guidelines for GP electronic patient records v4 (2010)

  2. The Purposes of Health Records

  3. Clinical Safety Assurance

  4. Records Governance

  5. Shared Electronic Patient Records

  6. High Quality Patient Records

  7. Clinical Coding Schemes

  8. Data Transfer & Interoperability

    a. The Personal Demographic Service

    b. GP2GP Electronic Record Transfer

    c. Data Migration

    d. Clinical Messaging

    e. The Summary Care Record and Emergency Care Summary

    f. High Quality Medication Records & The Electronic Prescription Service

  9. A Pathway to Good Paperless Practice

  10. Electronic Document Attachments

  11. Working in an e-business Environment

  12. Education and Training

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