GPIT Training News


About Us - Established in April 2013, the SCW IT Training team comprises 20+ IT Trainers who all have extensive experience of training GP clinical systems: EMIS Web, INPS Vision and TPP SystmOne.  We provide a service to 845 GP Practices in 21 CCGs across the South, Central and West of England which is approximately 10% of GP Practices in England.  This IT Training Service is provided by the CCG in support of Clinical System optimisation and there is no charge to your GP Practice.  We provide a blend of learning options which include Group Training, Webinars, Videos, On-Site Training and Telephone Support.  In Gloucestershire, Bernie Mayall, Assistant IT Training Manager is supported by IT Trainers, Joy Black, Nick Millener, Susan Martini and Anna Litwinowicz.


SCW IT Training Website - Please visit our SCW IT Training Team website to find out more about us and any upcoming events - https://training.scwcsu.nhs.uk/

Classroom Sessions at Sanger House are found on the Events > Central West page.  On our website you can also find training resources on all clinical systems including user guides and recorded videos.

Support Desk - We also provide a ‘Support Desk’ for booking training and any clinical system queries/ troubleshooting.

Call - 0300 123 5678     Email - training.scwcsu@nhs.net

Training Needs Analysis 2020/21 - We would like to give you the training you need, to do your job both effectively and efficiently; in order to achieve this, we need to know what you do and where you need help using your clinical system.  With this in mind, we have created an easy-to-use Training Needs Analysis (TNA). This questionnaire will enable you to indicate areas where you would benefit from having training and/or support from the SCW IT training team.  We will take your responses and feed them into our IT Training plans for next year. 

Online Appointments - With the need to offer at least 25% of your appointments online here are some tips to make this process as easy and efficient as possible.

-    Test Patient - Set up a test patient so you can see what it looks like from a patient perspective. Tests patients for Patient Access (EMIS) and SystmOnline (TPP) don’t need an NHS number but they do to use the NHS App.
-     Keep It SimpleKeep Slot Type and Rota Type names short (so they fit on small screens), concise (but avoid abbreviations and clinical terms) and patient friendly. Clinician names, time, locations are already displayed elsewhere so don’t need to be included.

Examples of confusing names –
-     Curzon -TELEPHONE CONSULTATION BETWEEN 12:00 -15:00PM
-                 GPAFNONGP - Nurse Appointment
-                 14 Day Normal Surgery - web bookable

Examples of appropriate names -
-                             Blood Test (Requested by clinician)
-                             Health Check (age 40-74 only)
-                             Cervical Screening (age 25-64 years)

-     Availability - You should try to offer all appointments that can be booked over the phone online. If a patient realises they have access to more appointments by phoning the practice they are less likely to try and book online in the future.
-     Release Time - Use appointment embargos to control how and when your appointments become available throughout the day. Experiment to identify which approach works best for your practice.
-     Review Bookings - Proactively reviewing the appointment reason given by patients provides an opportunity for triage and care navigation and to ensure correct appointments are being booked. Patient education is an important factor.

Arden’s QOF Support - Arden’s have released the following support article which is useful for maximising your QoF points now we are getting to that time of year.


QOF Personalised Care Adjustments – 2 Invites Following the concerns raised by practices about the loss of opportunistic prompts following the roll out of the QOF changes in 2019, TPP have confirmed to NHS Digital that they will add a status flag to the patient record which will alert practices to the fact these patients may be missing QOF care as part of their roll out of v44 of the QOF business rules. This will be implemented in the next two weeks.

NHS Digital will explore whether additional functionality can be added to v45 of the QOF business rules to ensure that the two invitation PCA will only come into force at the end of the reporting period i.e. 31st March. 

TPP Updates

As practices know, TPP release an update every month. We have summarised the main changes from the January 30th release on the SCW Training website:

https://training.scwcsu.nhs.uk/component/content/article/109-news/220-systmone-monthly-updates?Itemid=101

EMIS Web

Paramedic Prescribing - There have been a number of queries regarding adding the ability for paramedics to prescribe in EMIS Web. At present this functionality does not exist, however development is underway and this functionality will be released in EMIS Web 9.9 (due for release by the end of Q2 2020).  Further information, including detail on a workaround you can use in the interim, is available on EMIS Now

QOF Personalised Care Adjustments – 2 Invites - Since the release of the QOF Alert Protocol v42, QOF alerts for outstanding reviews etc have been automatically removed from a patient’s record once a second invitation for review has been coded. Technically this is in-line with the v42 business rules, however a number of users have expressed a frustration with this, and after discussions with NHS Digital it has been agreed that EMIS will amend their QOF alerts so that these alerts remain visible even after the second invitation has been coded. This work is underway and EMIS anticipate a release by 3rd February 2020.

Free Arden’s training available for EMIS Web practices - SCW IT Training team have now been accredited to deliver training on the Arden’s clinical templates, searches and recall system.  If you have not yet received a training session and you’d like to book one for your practice please contact Charmaine Jackson, Senior Product Specialist, Arden’s charmaine@ardens.org.uk for further details.