Please find below details of the practice stance with regards to these developments :-

Referral management

All practices must include the NHS Number as the primary identifier in all NHS clinical correspondence issued by the practice.

We include all NHS numbers in our referral letters.

Electronic appointment booking

Practices are required to promote and offer the facility for all patients, who wish to, to book, view, amend, cancel and print appointments online.

We intend to offer the facility for booking and cancelling appointments on- line by 31st March 2015.

Online booking of repeat prescriptions

Practices are required to promote and offer the facility for all patients, who wish to, to order online, view and print a list of their repeat prescriptions for necessary drugs, medicines or appliances.

We currently offer the facility for ordering repeat prescriptions on-line via patient access.

Interoperable records/Summary Care Record.

Practices are required to enable successful automated uploads of any changes to a patient’s summary information, at least on a daily basis to the Summary Care record.

Having your Summary Care Record available will help anyone treating you without your full medical record. They will have access to information about any medication you may be taking and any drugs that you have a recorded allergy or sensitivity to.

Stafford Medical Group is not currently live with SCR, but is due to go live by 31st March 2015. If you do not want your medical records to be available in this way then you will need to let us know so that we can update your record.

GP2GP record transfers

There is a contractual requirement to utilise the GP2GP facility for the transfer of patient records between practices, when a patient registers or de-registers.

It is very important that you are registered with a doctor at all times. If you leave your GP and register with a new GP, your medical records will be removed from your previous doctor and forwarded on to your new GP via NHS England. It can take several weeks for your paper records to reach your new surgery. With GP to GP record transfers, your electronic record is transferred to your new practice much sooner.

Stafford Medical Group confirms that GP2GP transfers are already active and we send and receive patient records via this system.

Patient access to their GP record

Practices are required to promote and offer the facility for patients to view online, export or print any summary of information from their records relating to medications, allergies, adverse reactions and any other items/date such as ‘additional’ record elements which has been agreed between the contractor and the patient.

We are working with our supplier and it is our intention to have this facility available to patients by 31st March 2015.