The West Yorkshire Digital Ambassador Programme, the result of a collaboration between West Yorkshire Digital Primary Care Collaborative and Health Innovation Yorkshire and Humber and designed to “strengthen the digital innovation, transformation and improvement skills of the primary care workforce”, has opened for applications. The course runs for nine weeks […]
Primary Care News
NHSE publishes latest stats on GP appointments including percentage of video consultations
NHS England has published the latest statistics on general practice appointments from September 2023, sharing that 23.8 percent were carried out via telephone (estimated to include around 7 million appointments) and 2.1 percent through video conferencing software (approximately 651,000 appointments) during the month. These figures demonstrate a slight drop from […]
NHS England opens £300 million procurement framework for digital pathways in primary care IT
NHS England has opened a procurement framework for the provision of digital pathway solutions to support primary care IT with an estimated value of £297,600,060. The scope of the digital pathways services and systems required will cover care navigation; online consultations and online patient/service user request reporting; cross-organisational appointment booking; […]
Wales awards £1.4m primary care workforce intelligence system contract
NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership has awarded a contract to procure a primary care workforce intelligence system, worth an estimated £1,144,760. The programme aims to form a single integrated solution to manage primary and community care workforce information, the medical performers list, ophthalmic performers list, dental performers list and all Wales pharmacy database […]
South West London ICB shares how digital triage improves primary care access
South West London integrated care board has shared how a digital system is being used at a practice in Kingston to triage patients. Holmwood Corner Surgery in Kingston launched an online triage service in May 2022, with an aim to support patients choose the best option that suits them when […]
Prescription management, long-term conditions, and new patient registrations in focus for improving care navigation in general practice
NHS England’s Primary Care Transformation team has published a guide focusing on prescription management, long-term conditions and new patient registrations as part of support to improve care related processes in general practice. For improving prescription management, the guidance places focus on increasing uptake of the NHS App or other patient […]
Agilio acquires primary care specialist iatro
Agilio Software has announced its latest acquisition of iatro, a specialist digital primary care supplier. The company said the acquisition will enhance its patient engagement software offering, levering the “significant amount of information that is held on Agilio’s TeamNet required for patient communications and being published on GP websites”. The company […]
Primary care virtual consultations increase to 597,670 in August
NHS England has released its publication of appointments in general practice for August 2023, noting a 447,673 increase in the number of video/online appointments in August 2023, from August 2022. Representing 2.11 percent of the total of 28,194,025 appointments in general practice in August 2023, 597,670 video/online appointments were recorded […]
Markets authority clears £1.2 billion EMIS purchase
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has cleared UnitedHealth’s £1.2bn purchase of EMIS. In August, the CMA provisionally cleared and found no competition concerns for the proposed deal, leading to a final confirmation announcement on 29 September 2023 that “the transaction does not raise competition concerns” and has “cleared the deal […]
General Practice Improvement Programme focuses on improving telephone journeys
NHS England, as part of its General Practice Improvement Programme, has shared a support offer to focus on improving telephone journeys in general practice. Aiming to support practices and PCNs in choosing, purchasing and optimising the use of advanced cloud-based telephony, the guidance covers the functionality offered; the use of call […]
