First Practice in West Midlands is Getting On Well with SystmOne

When CSC took over Accenture's regions of the National Programme for IT, SystmOne gained the opportunity to be deployed to CSC's original region - the North West and West Midlands.

The first GP practice to move to SystmOne in the West Midlands went live in June 2008. Here, the practice manager, Annette Heaney, tells us how they are getting on.

Drayton Road Medical Practice in Longton Health Centre, Stoke on Trent, is owned by private firm, Chilvers McCrea Healthcare, and has 3,200 patients on its books. The practice team consists of a GP, practice manager, practice nurse, nurse prescriber and a four-strong admin team.

When practice staff saw a demonstration of SystmOne, they liked what they saw. Annette says, "The system we were using previously wasn't supporting us as it should. We looked at SystmOne and were impressed - it is easy to use, and has a lot of facilities that our old system didn't have. On our old system, we couldn't rely on the patient searches, but on SystmOne, that's really easy, and the QOF is clear. It's up-to-date and is constantly being developed - it's good that users get to see what is coming in the system."*
 
Being the first practice not just in their PCT, but in the whole SHA, to move on to SystmOne could be a daunting prospect - did the practice feel any apprehension? "No, it was fine. We were virtually on our own using our legacy system anyway. So that wasn't an issue for us."

The practice worked together with TPP and CSC to achieve a successful deployment, as Annette explains: "We were pleased with how the data from our old system was transferred across - the data was of a good quality and the patients didn't notice a thing!"

Having had a while to get to grips with SystmOne, what do the staff think of it? " Annette says, "We are still learning and will be for a while - we're constantly coming across different things we didn't know it could do."

GP practices are able to speak to TPP directly to resolve any data migration problems or queries. This has been useful for Drayton Road, and Annette has been pleased with the service provided: "The team are quick at answering the phone and are approachable and friendly. That goes for the Customer Relationship Managers as well."

Other practices in the SHA are watching the progress of Drayton Road carefully. TPP hopes that before long, more patients in Stoke-on-Trent, indeed throughout the West Midlands, will be benefiting from a shared record with SystmOne. Annette agrees that having more practices in the area using SystmOne would be a benefit: "It'd be nice from a communication point of view to have people I know in the area on the same system. If we have a 'How to' question or a best practice query, we can be friendly faces for each other. I'd recommend that other GPs in the area have a look at SystmOne."

*SystmOne users can find out about new developments by selecting 'System>SystmOne Changes' from the Main SystmOne Menu.