The national agenda and ESR’s role
The NHS ESR Systems Integration Team develops and supports interface processes, to enable ESR to exchange information with third party systems and solutions. Currently, there is approximately 2000 interfaces in operation across the ESR footprint. Some of the third party systems sit internally within NHS Trusts and others are external interface processes; for example supporting links to systems such as those at NHS Pensions and the General Medical Council (GMC).
Health Care Professions Council Interface
In response to a number of requests from the ESR Special Interest Groups, and following a significant consultation period with the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC), an interface with the HCPC was delivered in October 2018. Whilst the update and notification works in the same manner as that of the links with the GMC and the Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC), the initial capture of data from the HCPC Register is different and built in house by the NHS ESR Systems Integration team.
Within a week of the interface going live in October 2018, the registration details of 150,000 HCPC registrants recorded on ESR were checked and updated. The interface process facilitates the weekly check and automatic update of up to nine data items for each HCPC registrant. The HCPC interface process works by interrogating the HCPC public (online) register, using the HCPC registration numbers that are stored on ESR. It then applies updates to the HCPC data on an Employee record where the information on the register differs from the data held within ESR.
Felicity King from Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in East Grinstead says:
'The new HCPC interface with ESR has allowed us to save time. This interface process has given us assurance that staffs are up to date with their registrations. Now that this service is in place users will no longer have to manually type or check the HCPC registration. This will make substantial efficiencies overall in the area of professional registrations using ESR.'
Digital Maternity Exemption Certificate
Working with colleagues within the NHS Business Services Authority, we have been supporting a Digital Maternity Exemption Certificate Project - which is currently being piloted with a small group of midwives, GPs and their patients.
Currently, expectant mothers are issued with a maternity exemption certificate (a plastic card), to allow them to access free dental care and free NHS prescriptions during pregnancy and the 12 months following the birth of their child. The new digital service offering from the NHS BSA will allow patients to receive their Maternity Exemption Certificates electronically by email, rather than receiving the plastic card.
Following positive feedback, the NHS BSA is looking to increase the number of midwives and GP’s included in their pilot. Clinical users of the new service must be authorised and their professional registration must be validated in order to allow them to access the new service. The ESR Systems Integration Team is currently exploring how they can assist in automatically validating a midwife or GP’s professional registration, thus enabling access to the digital service. Further updates will be provided as the project progresses..
A new online portal for Consultant activity
As part of the National Clinical Improvement Programme, the ESR Systems Integration Team has been working with NHS Improvement to build a new interface process. The National Clinical Improvement Programme (NCIP) aims to support clinicians with learning and continuous self-development with respect to the services they deliver. This programme will deliver an online portal that will provide Trust level activity, such as surgical and procedural outcomes data to NHS consultants in England. The interface will provide specific consultant details from ESR for participating Trusts to the NCIP system, which will facilitate the registration of consultants onto the Portal. The deployment includes a pilot phase scheduled for April 2019.
Doctors in Training
NHS Improvement, together with Health Education England, is overseeing a new national programme to improve the on-boarding and induction experience of Doctors in Training (DiT), when they rotate from one training post to the next. The programme will address national barriers to support local improvement and will sit alongside existing regional streamlining programmes.
The NHS ESR Team is supporting the programme to implement the Streamlined Doctors in Training Interface (which sits between ESR and the Trainee Information System or TIS); and assisting on defining plans to roll out the Occupational Health (OH) Clearance (Bi-directional) Interface between ESR and third party OH systems.
Further information about the national programme will be made available in due course, and details of regional streamlining programmes, which include information about the rotation process for DiT, can be found at https://www.nhsemployers.org/your-workforce/recruit/streamlining-programme.