Nottingham City GP Alliance (NCGPA) is a federation of 45 GP practices covering a population of over 365,000 patients. However, many of the services delivered by NCGPA create opportunities for closer collaboration and economies of scale for all GP practices across the whole of Nottingham city. As a GP alliance, NCGPA is continually striving to improve access to patient facing services.
Launched in April 2018, GP+ Nottingham City, one of the many services provided by NCGPA, was Nottingham’s first city-wide extended hours service. At GP+, appointments are available with GPs, practice nurses, healthcare assistants, phlebotomists, clinical pharmacists and physiotherapists. Appointments are provided outside of normal practice operating hours, typically in the evening and at weekends. As an extended access hub providing both clinical and non-clinical appointments, having an appointment booking system that all GP practices can access easily is paramount.
NCGPA has been commissioned to operate the COVID-19 Hub for Nottingham City as part of the COVID response for Nottingham. This means more appointments need to be available to book directly from practices.
Before the deployment of GP Connect, a service that allows authorised clinical staff to share and view GP practice clinical information and data between IT systems, NCGPA was using a third-party booking system for appointment bookings at GP+. Although it worked, the process was administration-heavy and costly.