NHS England Approves New Cloud-Based GP IT System

NHS England has approved the first of a new generation of electronic patient record systems for GP practices.

Developed by Medicus Health, the cloud-based technology can support the integration of primary care with other settings.

Dr Amanda Doyle, NHS national director of primary care and community services, described the move as “the first shake-up of the GP IT market we have seen in a quarter of a century.”

An Integrated Clinical Platform 

The system supplier is the first to be fully assured through NHS England’s Tech Innovation Framework. This is part of the Digital Services for Integrated Care suite of frameworks, designed to introduce “a new set of assured products that are public cloud hosted, browser-based, and built around open [application programming interfaces].”

The framework supports system suppliers to deliver innovative clinical products into the GP marketplace. At a minimum, these must deliver the six core functions of an electronic health record, which are: 

• Patient information maintenance
• Appointments management
• Recording consultations
• Prescribing
• Referral management
• Resource management

There are currently four suppliers on the framework: Medicus, Optum, private network Check Up Health, and OX.DH from Oxford Health.

More core GP IT systems that meet the framework’s standards are expected to become available by April 2026, offering a wider choice for practices. Increased competition in the sector would help boost productivity and reduce the amount of time staff spent dealing with administrative tasks, NHS England said.

Until recently, GP practices in England have largely had a choice of just two suppliers of IT systems to manage patient care.

According to Medicus, its system offers “a fully integrated front door experience whilst reducing admin and system switching.” It can integrate with 24 national NHS services and is the first IT system to implement five new national open standards for information exchange, including for electronic prescriptions and referrals.

The technology can be accessed on different devices, such as laptops and tablets.

Early Adoption at Wilmslow Health Centre 

Dr Amar Ahmed is a GP partner at Wilmslow Health Centre, one of four early-adopter sites for the Medicus system. He said it had enabled the practice to manage appointments and consultations more smoothly, communicate better as a team, and access patient records instantly. “It’s the kind of efficiency that translates directly into patient care,” he said.

The practice has informed patients that it is migrating from its current electronic patient record system — education management information system — to Medicus, which it described as a next-generation electronic record system developed specifically for the NHS. 

The health centre said it hoped that the new system would help protect against “the growing trend of national GP computer meltdowns.”

Dr Sheena Meredith is an established medical writer, editor, and consultant in healthcare communications, with extensive experience writing for medical professionals and the general public. She is qualified in medicine and in law and medical ethics.