GP Extraction Service is go

The General Practice Extraction Service is to launch next year after its apppintment business case was finally approved by the Department of Health.

The NHS Information Centre said approval from the DH for the primary care data extraction and analysis tool brought to an end “a long period of external review” and meant the service could move towards full implementation.

GPES will extract data from all NHS GP practices in England and provide the information for all nationally sponsored initiatives that require GP data.

It will provide access to practice level information on a national basis for the first time.

It will also support GP payment systems as part of a replacement for the current Quality and Outcomes Framework system, the Quality Management and Analysis System (QMAS).

Dave Roberts, senior responsible owner for GPES, wrote to stakeholders to announce the result of the DH deliberations, which included a review of the proposal by the cross-government review of ICT projects.

In his letter Roberts said: “The 30 plus statements of support that GPES received in summer 2010 formed an essential part of the team’s response to the cross-government review of ICT projects and they undoubtedly played a major part in ensuring GPES emerged from the review process with its importance confirmed.”

Roberts said the funding approval confirmed the strategic importance of GPES and signalled the DH’s confidence that it was an essential part of the NHS’s future information needs.

The approval of the appointment business case is the second stage in the Department of Health's process for approving business cases. It means the project can invite final tenders and announce a preferred bidder and confirms the availability of funds.

The NHS information Centre will now received funding to pay for the technical components of GPES and the implementation of the wider service. Roberts said the NHS IC would be announcing its preferred bidder for the GPET-Q query tool in late summer.

The NHS IC said it would set up an Independent Advisory Group for GPES and added that its information governance principles had received approval in the last year from the medical ethics committees’ of both the BMA and Royal College of GPs.

GPES will work with the new General Practice Payment Calculation Service to replace QMAS from April 2013.

Roberts said the new systems would provide the proposed NHS Commissioning Board with current and emerging outcomes data including data from QoF and the proposed Commissioning Outcomes Framework.

He added: “The resulting service will also have the functionality to support other national or local payment services devised by national or local commissioning arrangements.”

Roberts added that GPES was ready to engage with prospective customers including any organisation that had DH sponsorship, NHS bodies operating at a national level and some academic research initiatives.

He said it would soon be able to support their requests for data from GP clinical systems.