This September, TPP celebrates its tenth birthday! The company started off life in September 1998 with a clinical system called 'Generations', later to become SystmOne, the UK's leading centralised system, and the only one specifically designed to share clinical information through a single electronic record.

At the end of its first decade, TPP employs more than 80 people, including 13 trainers across England and Wales. In the last two years alone, 350 GP practices have moved on to SystmOne, taking the total number up to over 780. Also, in the last two years, the number of patient records on SystmOne has doubled, to very nearly ten million. To put in to context just how many people that is, it's like having the whole population of Shanghai, or every single person in the UK aged over 65, on the system. Put another way, it's one in six people in the UK, or one in five in England.

In its tenth year, TPP has seen significant changes. The start of the GP Systems of Choice scheme will make SystmOne available to GP practices in the Southern and London areas with CFH funding. Already, pockets of SystmOne users are springing up across this area, namely in Wiltshire, Devon, and Dorset.

Closer to home, students at Leeds University are being shown SystmOne as part of their courses, as an example of IT use in the NHS. And in Bradford, SystmOne is being used to enable a groundbreaking research project following the lives of 10,000 babies over 20 years - Born in Bradford.

As for the future, TPP is constantly looking at ways to make sure SystmOne supports its users, and helps them meet the challenges they face. So whether it's development to support polyclinics, Darzi Centres, or practice-based commissioning, SystmOne continues to be at the forefront of clinical systems in this country.

Find out how TPP's co-founders reflect on the past ten years, and what they're looking forward to over the next decade, in our 'Up, Close & Personal' feature on pages 2 and 3 of TPP Times 28.

Everyone at TPP would like to thank CFH, CSC and all SystmOne's users for their support over the last ten years. Without it, SystmOne would not be able to continue to break new ground. So, three cheers - to TPP, to SystmOne and to you!