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NEWS: Practices struggling with correspondence delays

Two coroners have highlighted the impact on patients of the mismanagement of transfer of paper records in the NHS – while GPs say that services have not improved.

The British Medical Association says that practices continue to experience delays and errors in paperwork transfers from the privately-managed Primary Care Support Service.

Errors by the NHS Shared Business Services have been the subject of Parliamentary inquiries – but the BMA says Capita management of services over the last two years has failed to deliver improvements.

In a survey some 88% of practices said they were waiting for collection of patient records – and 93% were waiting for their delivery.

Some 62% of practices said urgent requests about patients were not actioned within three weeks – and 64% said they had recently received incorrect patient records.

BMA GP committee chair Dr Richard Vautrey said: “These new findings tell a now all too familiar story, that after two years of promises PCSE/Capita and NHS England are continuing to fail to deliver the essential service practices rely on and this is having a real impact on patient care.

“The BMA has for the last two years tried to work with NHS England to resolve the issues caused by Capita’s shambolic running of GP backroom services, but we have so far been met with hollow commitments as responses.

“The fact that almost all practices are either waiting for patient records to be delivered or collected is extremely concerning, as patients cannot be given the safe and proper care they need if doctors do not hold correct information about them.”

Meanwhile, in Leicestershire, a coroner heard how a hospital letter about a patient with heart failure took a month to reach her GP. The result was that a GP failed to receive advice that the woman, Olive Daynes, aged 87, needed to come off warfarin.

Coroner Paul Cooper has written to the hospital, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, stating: “In these days of technology could not such communication be sent primarily by email?”

He ruled: “All parties at the inquest commented that if they were aware of the hospital visit and change of medication sooner, the deceased’s life could possibly have been extended.”

The Times today reports a second inquest in London involving a woman who was referred by her dentist to hospital because of an abscess in her throat. The letter, requesting an urgent appointment, was sent in the post. The patient, Bronwyn Williams, aged 68, died nearly three weeks after seeing the dentist and without a hospital appointment.

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