Planning for cutover

• Clinicians may need more time initially for input onto the new system so you should put breather slots in the rotas on the current system for the first few days post go-live. Putting these slots in the rotas on the current system ensures that these can be transferred to the rotas on the new system, giving the clinicians some “catch up” time.

• Building rotas on the test system before the cutover may be possible, depending on the system the practice is migrating to. These can then be exported and then imported into the live system.

• All advanced appointments booked in the current system will need to be transferred to the new system post go-live. To ensure that this can happen in a timely fashion is it recommended the appointments in the current system are only booked as far in advance as two weeks post go-live.

• If possible, reschedule data rich chronic disease clinics so that these are not taking place during the cutover period.

• Carry on as normal entering consultations in the current system and manually transfer these to the new system as part of the data re-entry process once you have gone live. 

• It should be possible to copy and paste the free text from the current system consultations into the new system, however coded data will need to be entered manually.

• The practice should have access to the previous system for several weeks post go-live, however should this not be the case or you still have data to enter at the end of this period then the practice staff may need to print out the remaining consultations or data from the previous system.

Keep a record of requested visits and enter consultations in the current system so that these can be transferred to the new system as part of the data re-entry process. 

• Details of all telephone calls to patients that result in an entry in the patient record must be noted as these entries will need to be entered in the new system post go-live.

• Ensure clinicians keep a record of adhoc calls to include the name and date of birth of the patient and the date they were called as any entries made in the current system will need to be re-entered into the new system.

• To negate the risk of missed information, it is useful to create a rota in the current system, so all the calls made can be logged.

• Within the Electronic Prescribing System (EPS), repeat dispensing prescriptions are issued individually by the prescribing system and signed and sent individually to Spine as required for the patient. There is a dependency on the prescribing system to retain the information after a migration as it needs to continue generating prescription issues for the authorised period.

  – Any outstanding repeat dispensing issues held on the Spine for a patient will therefore need to be cancelled and reissued after go-live. Avoid future dating EPS prescriptions as this could lead to errors in the original system during the cutover. This is also a good time to advise the partner pharmacies in your area so they could also prepare for this.

  – A report can be run within the practice to identify patients likely to be affected, as this will allow any new or remaining issues to be lined up with the cutover dates.  For example, a patient who has a six-monthly set of issues could have their last issue of six due in the period covering cutover, so they will not need a re-issue of these until after go-live.

• Keep a record of all prescription requests made/issued during the ‘cutover’ period. Ideally batch all the repeat prescription requests together by date order. If any requests are taken by phone/over the counter/any other method, you will need to make a note of those and add them to the batched information

• To reduce the amount of effort to re-enter prescription data, some practices choose to:

  – Issue two prescriptions (either post-dated or by amending the quantity) from the month before the ‘cutover’ begins until a week after go-live. Note: Do not post-date prescriptions sent via EPS.

  – For EPS repeat prescriptions, practices can revert back to issuing FP10 forms from the month before the ‘cutover’ begins until a week after go-live. Changing the option from EPS to FP10 forms needs to happen on an individual patient basis. This can be done at the point of ordering all medications.

• With either of these options it is important that patients and pharmacies are informed of this change at the earliest opportunity to avoid any confusion

• Recommended cut off periods for Registration and Pathology links will have been advised by your commissioner or delivery partner or the new system supplier. The commissioner or delivery partner may organise this with the relevant organisations on your behalf, but if not you will need to ensure that you have the correct contact details for this

• Ask the lab to send all results in paper format during cutover so that your clinicians can review them and act as appropriate.

• The backlog of pathology results should be sent electronically once you are live on the new system so you will not need to manually enter these from the paper copies, but you will need to confirm with your local provider.

• Print an extra copy of any referrals done during cutover period and note the Unique Booking Reference Number (UBRN) on the printout. These can then be scanned into the new system post go-live.

• Remember to enter the referral code on the new system if required.

  (For further information see The Advice and Guidance Toolkit for the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS))

• Everything that comes in during the cutover period will need to be scanned into the new system post go-live.

• Practices may choose to continue scanning during cutover to enable easy access to correspondence for clinicians, others may choose not to.

• In either case, it will be necessary to scan everything into the new system once live, therefore make sure that all the incoming paper copies are kept together.

If there are any screening services that send results electronically directly to the clinical system, the service should be asked to stop sending messages from around two days before cutover starts until after go-live.

• Leave all the messages received during the cutover period in the generic mailbox as they can be picked up from there and dropped into the new system once you are live.

• You may want to print copies for your GPs to view, or ask them to review in the mailbox, to ensure that anything requiring attention is dealt with.

• 111 messages that are sent directly to the current system should be noted and manually re-entered to the new system post go-live.

• The ‘Out of hours’ reports will continue to come into the current system during cutover.

• You will need to keep a copy of each for scanning into the new system once live.

Do not do summarisation and routine data entry during the cutover period as the data will not be transferred to the new system.