TPP announces 1,000th SystmOne practice

Tags: Community GP Out-of-hours SystmOne TPP

22 Sep 2009

Healthcare IT system supplier TPP has announced 1,000 GP practices are now live with SystmOne GP.

The company said Broadhurst Street Surgery in Leicester has become the 1,000th SystmOne practice, almost a decade after the first GP practice went live with SystmOne.

TPP said it has another 150 GP practices in deployment, meaning that one in seven practices in England is already using or moving to SystmOne.

This month also marks 11 years of TPP's existence. Dr John Parry, TPP’s clinical director and a GP in Keighley, West Yorkshire, said his practice was the first in the country to use SystmOne.

He added: “The first ten years has been a fascinating time. We have moved from a ‘new entrant’ to the market to an established clinical system supplier. ”

The vast majority of the systems implemented by TPP have been under local service provider contracts in the North, Midlands and East of England, firstly under LSP Accenture and then CSC.

Andrew Spence, CSC’s director of healthcare strategy, told E-Health Insider that the company had a “huge presence in primary care” with SystmOne rolled out into GP practices, community care, child health and prisons.

He added: ““SystmOne is probably the most widely deployed product under the national programme, and it barely gets a mention.”

Earlier this summer, TPP announced that its new products included modules covering acute hospitals, community hospitals, mental health, social services and out-of-hours care.

Dr Parry added: “The pressures on health communities over the next few years through financial constraints will fuel the need for smarter and more efficient ways of working.

"Greater integration of primary and secondary care will support this, so the recent announcement about our secondary care products is very welcome."

Interview: Read more from E-Health Insider’s exclusive interview with Andrew Spence in the comment and analysis section.

Fiona Barr

TPP moves on secondary care (01 Jul 2009) (16)
TPP named as CSC strategic solution (08 May 2009) (7)

Reader's Comments

Good going TPP

22 Sep 09 12:09

1000 practices now using the TPP system, starting from a near standing start is impressive by any reckoning. Well done TPP and those in the NHS that have backed the system.

But it would be really nice for this growing number of practices to be able to interoperate with those parts of the NHS not running SystmOne. Interoperability not standardisation is the future. GP2GP record transfers would be a nice place to start.

No...

22 Sep 09 12:09

Interoperability AND standardisation is the future.

And one more

22 Sep 09 12:09

Interoperability, standardisation and a market which encourages innovation, rather than a government strategy that attempts (and fails) to pick winners and then specify systems from Whitehall or Leeds.

Given a chance, some suppliers do think its a good idea to listen to their clients and respond to what them. But if you've got a guaranteed market and a lock down on your captive customers, why bother?

I hate being pedantic but...

22 Sep 09 21:09

Adoption of standards is quite a different notion than standardisation, which may have been what the poster intended to say.

Therefore could we all agree that interoperability (easier said than done but worthy all the same) and adoption of standards where they are relevant (that could also include existing / useful de-facto industry standards by the way) are virtues worth pursuing whilst rigid standardisation for its own sake gets the bird.

Standardisation ultimately leads to monopolisation - even if that is an unintended consequence - and at the very least pits husky against husky to get the most from the single bowl of husky meat . The recent forays of MS and Google into government circles with their PHR advertising network solutions are a stark reminder of that. Let's not be fooled people!

Britain had the opportunity to lead the world in health IT design implementation and delivery on a transformational scale, the British prowess in Primary Care computing and pockets of Acute care might even still be world beating - someone, somewhere though had better pull their finger out pretty quickly if any of this will have an impact overseas contributing to the nations' economic recovery.

Without a market, how do you judge a system?

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

23 Sep 09 07:09

"The vast majority of the systems implemented by TPP have been under local service provider contracts in the North, Midlands and East of England, firstly under LSP Accenture and then CSC." SHAs and PCTs have been very aggressive in promoting LSP products: according to Yorkshire and the Humber SHA Board papers, the roll-out of LSP general practice systems was essential to avoid financial penalties on volume seeing secondary care products were not yet available. In this type of non-market, some degree of adoption of SystmOne in the rest of the UK, where CSC is not the LSP might give a better indication of the approval rate of the system by the GPs actually involved in selecting new systems. Are there any figures for parts of the UK not controlled by CSC or even CfH?

Practices are CHOOSING SystmOne

23 Sep 09 16:09

The implications of DR Hawking's post is that 1,000 GP practices have been hoodwinked into taking SystmOne. Thousands of GPs have been pressurised by big bad PCTs, who have no consideration for the communities they serve, into doing something that is against the practice interests and those of their patients.

This is in contrast to system providers whose sole concern is the benefits of their system to practices and to patients and whose marketing has always been a model of clarity and objectivity.

Sorry for the deep sarcasm but, as a head of IT for a PCT in a Yorkshire and Humber, I can't be the only one who gets fed up with Dr Hawking casting aspersions on my intelligence, professionalism and motives.

It is an unfortunate fact for supporters of other systems that most of the growth in SystmOne is practices choosing the system because it is a good GP system and it is integrated with Community and Child Health services.

It is an unfortunate fact for opponents of the Yorkshire and Humber approach that a strategy for systems across the SHA which includes Community Services and Child Health as well as GP systems is starting to pay real dividends for patients and clinicians.

Practices are CHOOSING to be part of that strategy because it makes sense and that is the way it should be.

TPP Roll Out

gji@nhs.net

23 Sep 09 20:09

Mary Hawking and the anonymous 'sixth' poster are both right. I have talked to many GPs who readily chose to move to TPP SystmOne and are very happy with it, considering it to be much better than their previous GP Clinical System.

However, I have also received many contacts from practices complaining that their PCT were trying to force them to migrate to SystmOne, including using such tactics as to refuse to upgrade servers that were obviously no longer fit for purpose etc etc.

It is important that systems are adopted due to meeting the business needs of a practice, not due to SHA or PCT policy.

Grant Ingrams

Choice in the South

24 Sep 09 20:09

Yes, Mary, there are practices in the South (the Cluster with no LSP) that are choosing TPP.

The benefits they are seeing are around flexibility on collaboration for extended hours, links with Darzi walk-ins, easy flu buddying.

We don't have the same system for community based services sadly.

It is one of the bad aspects of the NHS/GP relationship that the PCTs pay for the GP systems, but appear to have no say in the choice. Actually there are good clinical integration reasons for choosing a consistent primary care system across an area.

That TPP appears to be the only system allowing this sort of collaboration as yet makes it easier to encourage practices to make a consistent choice.

Choice? in the South

julian.spinks@nhs.net

27 Sep 09 16:09

A significant number of practices where I work in 'the South' taking SystmOne are GP-led health centres who had little or no choice in the matter.

Far from improving integration, they now have to run a second clinical software system for walk in patients because of the lack of interoperability between TPP's offering and the systems used by other practices.

I have no doubt that practices in TPP strongholds are choosing SystemOne. TPP appears to have a game plan which deliberately avoids interoperability as this perpetuates their ability to pressurise practices and PCTs in their key areas by saying "either join us or you will be unable to work with any of our current customers". This contrasts the approach of EMIS with their Web system, which looks to this as a key feature.

As for giving PCTs the ability to choose GP systems, I would be happy for this to happen if I felt that those making the choice had real knowledge of the way practices function and the pitfalls of changing systems, including data loss and the dangers of clinical errors whilst the practices learn how to use their new system. Experience to-date has not been encouraging that this is likely to be the case.

PS Before anyone accuses me. I am not an employee or customer of EMIS.

Choice and EMIS Web

30 Sep 09 11:09

Sorry Julian but the rather large hole in your argument is that EMIS Web is not currently a choice. It has been promised for ages but only becomes available after testing in January. PCTs had to get their access centres up a year ago. They chose the only integrated system available at the time.