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The GPSoC programme is now up and running for England (there are different arrangements in other parts of the UK). All PCTs have had a substantial sum of money to pay for infrastructure improvements - the types of things that the money is mean to pay for are - replacing servers, PC, network hardware etc. Money not required for those things should be spent on items to improve paperless working like scanning systems and document management systems.

Signing up to GPSoC means that you can keep you existing clinical system and CfH will pay for
the maintenance charges on the clinical system software. The hardware remains the responsibility of the PCT but iSOFT are offering cheap maintenance deals on the back of GPSoC. The money the PCT saves can then be reinvested in training and other activities to support GPs.
From the money saving point of view the sooner practices sign up to GPSoC the more money the PCT will save. The money has been put aside centrally and if not used will just go back to the treasury. For a practice to sign up they need to contact the GPSoC lead at the PCT -
if you do not know who the lead is you should ask your PCT or email gpsoc@nhs.net. For more details on GPSoC go to http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/gpsupport/gpsoc

The only part of the GPSoC documentation which is missing is the PCT Practice agreement - having been involved in the writing of this I can say that there is nothing in it which I think will give practices problems and I would expect it to be published soon.

I know many practices have felt under pressure to change systems in the past few years and if this applies to you GPSoC is part of the solution to this problem. The nGMS contract gives practices a choice of system and GPSoC delivers this choice. While the NHS as a whole anticipates that eventually all practices will want to move to an LSP system it now accepts nationally that practices want to choose the time of any such move and that such LSP systems as exist currently do not meet all practices needs in terms of functionality.

GPSoC lays out minimum functionality standards that all systems must meet and it is expected that the bar will be raised over time to increase the functionality available to practices. It is not required however that practice move up the levels until they are ready to do so. It is thus entirely possible for  practice to stay on a surgery based system for the life of GPSoC which under the current contracts is up to 8 years.

I would therefore urge all practices to sign up to GPSoC.

Richard Gunn
iSUG Chair