IT/Electronic Statement of Intent

Contractual requirements came into force from 1st April 2014 requiring that GP practices should make available a statement of intent in relation to the following IT developments:

• Referral Management
• Electronic Appointment Booking
• Online Booking of repeat prescriptions
• Summary Care Record
• GP2GP transfers
• Patient Access to records

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

Referral management

The Practice policy is to include patient NHS numbers as the primary identifier in all NHS correspondence.

Electronic appointment booking

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

We currently offer the facility for booking, changing or cancelling appointments online. Appointments can also be cancelled using our website cancellation form.

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 patients to view and order repeat prescriptions online.

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.

Wokingham Medical Centre is already Summary Care Record compliant. However, if patients do not want their medical records to be available to emergency, out of hours, 111 or hospital providers, they can ‘opt out’ of the service by completing a standard opt out form which is available from Reception or on our website.

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.

Wokingham Medical Centre can confirm that GP2GP transfers are already active and we both send and receive patient records via this system to expedite record transfers.

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.

Wokingham Medical Centre work with Patient Access and our system supplier to offer patients access to their medical records, this includes medications, allergies, test results, immunisations and problems. Please complete the online access request form if you would like to register for these services.