Following a successful year, further funding for a One Care project to increase use of the NHS App has been secured.

The NHS App project, led by One Care and funded by the ICB, has been successful in achieving:

• 30% of BNSSG practices with an NHS App sign up rate of 67% and over of their patients – the highest rate in England
• an increase in the rate of take up of the App
• 5% increase in the number of people who switched their App notifications on – an extra 57,000 people
• an average reduction in practices’ SMS fragment usage rate from 2.38 to 2.35 – a saving of approximately £9,000

Morgan Daly, One Care’s deputy director of digital transformation, said: “Securing another year’s funding is great recognition of the achievements of this project.

“The team has worked hard to help practices and patients alike. We know that increased use of the App will not only help patients manage their care online, it will also help release valuable time for practices by giving patients access to their medical records, test results and the ability to order repeat prescriptions.”

The project has also promoted digital inclusion in the region and has recruited three local VCSE organisations to support this. The project team produced guides for using audio and translation services available in the App, and enrolled local libraries to provide warm spaces with access to devices, connectivity, and 1-2-1 support for patients from a digital champion​.

The next steps for the project are to:

• review the accessibility of the App promotional materials
• identify areas within BNSSG with low uptake of the App and understand the reasons for this
• explore how the App could be integrated with secondary care, such as mental health services
• look into how the different levels of functionality offered by different practices affect patients’ experiences

To find out more about how the NHS App can benefit your practice and patients please contact nhs.app@onecare.org.uk

Our digital team is here to help your practice make the most of your digital systems and innovative technology.

We can help improve your practice’s digital expertise, to make your processes more efficient and save you time and money. We offer our member practices free hands-on support, resources, and training to help the smooth running and development of your business.

We offer expertise across a range of digital systems, including:

• in-person training for EMIS and managed referral
• help with day-to-day TeamNet operational issues
• guidance on Black Pear, CareFlow Connect, and Resource Publisher

We have also developed a range of searches and protocols to help the working life of practices – all available here.

Join us at our latest digital roadshow – 23 May 2025, 10am-2.00pm, Arnos Manor Hotel, Bristol

As part of our support for practices, we host an annual digital roadshow. This is an opportunity for practice staff to

• meet tech suppliers in person
• enjoy live presentations and explore cutting edge technology
• meet the One Care digital team and find out more about the support we offer
• connect with your peers

The tech suppliers you’ll be able to meet include Heidi Health; X-on Health Ltd; Healthtec-1; eConsult; Accurx; Abrace; NHS SCWCS; Hippo Labs; Agilio Software; Klinik Healthcare Solutions; and GP Automate.

Lunch will be provided, and free parking is available. Please register here by Friday 2nd May. We look forward to seeing you there.

Let us know how we can support your practice: digital@onecare.org.uk

To make it easier for practices to find the right support for their needs, here are the specialist areas the members of our GPSO team can help you with. They all have years of practice experience to draw on, and can help you remotely or will come into your practice to work with you directly.

The GPOS team’s work helps:

• support process optimisation
• improve efficiency
• manage, save or gain practices money
• release time for practices

If you ever have questions for One Care or need our help but are unsure who to contact, please email enquiries@onecare.org.uk and we’ll direct your enquiry to the right person, who will make sure you get the assistance you’re after.

As the end of the financial year approaches, advice from One Care teams can help you get ahead with your planning.

The data experts in our business intelligence team can help you understand your data for QOF, SMI and LD health checks, and for the investment and impact fund (IIF). All the information for this is available on your practice dashboard, but if you need help with it, please get in touch. The team can give you a more detailed picture of your achievements to date and any shortfalls, to make sure you’re getting paid properly.

Please contact business.intelligence@onecare.org.uk

Also take a look at the financial advice from our general practice support team on how to make a financial plan; maximise income streams; and reduce costs. The article contains plenty of top tips, with links to other resources for more detailed information.

Our GPS team also offers practices a confidential and informal review of your finances. Please contact practice.support@onecare.org.uk.

Both teams’ advice, support and resources are available free of charge, as part of your One Care subscription.

In response to pressures across the BNSSG healthcare system, and the predicted flu surge, the GPCB’s urgent care programme successfully secured an additional £20,000 of funding for PCNs to increase flu vaccination uptake among their at-risk communities and patients.

The funding was to support the delivery of additional, more focussed outreach work in those groups.

Ruth Thomas, GPCB urgent care programme lead, said: “Practices used their own vaccination data and knowledge of their local communities to identify which patient groups to target with their additional outreach work. All the identified patients had previously been invited for vaccination via the more standard methods, so practices had to use alternative ways to encourage take up.”

Approaches varied by practice. Some targeted patients with diabetes, respiratory conditions, and chronic heart disease, while others prioritised outreach to asylum seekers, non-English speakers, and ethnic minority groups with a lower uptake. Some practices also targeted younger age groups, who are typically less likely to get vaccinated.

To boost take-up, practices used a combination of phone call reminders, opportunistic vaccinations, and social media and website updates. Practices also engaged with local community groups online to help spread the message, held ad hoc vaccination clinics and drop-in sessions – some in community centres – and offered weekend and evening appointments. Patients were also reminded they could get vaccinated at their local pharmacy.

Ruth added: “We had to move quickly to secure the funding, and practices had to move quickly to put the additional outreach work into action. The whole project has been a great example of how we can all adapt and respond to support system pressures – especially at a time when PCNs were already busy managing winter demands and providing additional ARI slots too.”

The urgent care programme will now evaluate the initiative, looking at the number of vaccines delivered, what worked well, what could be improved, and any successful strategies practices can use in their future planning.

If you’d like to find out more about the flu outreach initiative please contact ruth.thomas@onecare.org.uk

One Care’s general practice support team has expanded to offer practices even greater expert knowledge and help.

In response to feedback from practices about the type of support they find most useful, the team has been joined by a development advisor, and a general practice quality advisor. Read on to find out more about our new team members and what they can do for your practice:

Zoe Turner – general practice quality advisor

In her new role at One Care, Zoe provides tailored support to practices helping them:

• achieve CQC compliance
• improve clinical quality outcomes
• embed robust governance frameworks

She also offers practical guidance on managing inspections, implementing quality improvement initiatives, and aligning practice operations with regulatory requirements.

By working with Zoe, practices can strengthen their operational efficiency and compliance processes, enhancing patient safety and care.

Zoe Turner is a healthcare transformation and improvement specialist with 10 years’ experience in general practice. More recently, she has worked with practices to implement modern general practice and enhance patient access, as well as helping them to comply with regulatory standards.

Contact Zoe: zoe.turner@onecare.org.uk

Judith Forde – development advisor

Judith can help with practices with:

• business process analysis, including process and patient journey mapping
• strategic planning
• change management, including adopting new ways of working
• project management

Judith is already our planned care project manager having joined One Care in 2023. Previously, Judith worked in social housing for over 25 years, including roles in strategic planning and service improvement.

As well as a postgraduate diploma in management, Judith is an APMG change management practitioner / agile change coach, and is on the NHS change management steering group.

Contact Judith: Judith.forde@onecare.org.uk

Steve Mowatt, general practice support and operations executive director, said: “As a member organisation, we want to help our practices in whatever way they find most useful. Our new team members will do exactly that, and will enhance the expertise we already provide in areas we know are vital to the efficient running of a modern, successful practice.”

Advice from the finance experts in our general practice support team can help you get ahead with your financial planning before details of the 2025-26 contract arrangements are confirmed.

Take a look at the team’s article here on how to make a financial plan; maximise income streams; and reduce costs. The article contains plenty of top tips, with links to other resources for more detailed information.

And don’t forget our general practice support team also offers practices a confidential and informal review of your practice’s finances. The reviews are available free of charge, as part of your One Care subscription.

For any finance questions, or to book a finance review, please contact practice.support@onecare.org.uk

Taking a careful look at how your practice’s appointment book is managed can help improve overall efficiency and future business planning. One Care’s business intelligence team can analyse how you utilise your slots, if use of your workforce is optimised, and how accurate your appointment planning is.

Read on to find out how an appointment analysis can improve your practice’s operations, and how the team helped a PCN improve use of staff time and demand mapping.

 How can your practice benefit from this?

Our BI team can investigate the appointments your practice offers and books. This will help you to:

• adjust your slot provision to suit patient demand
• structure appointments based on the actual duration rather than an assumed duration
• consider refining the types of slots you offer
• book additional patients to fill slots
• plot staff working patterns against the appointment data

The analysis can be specific to clinicians and roles, or it can be a broad investigation of all users in your appointment book. It can also look at specific cohorts of patients – the nature of the work they generate and the time it takes, DNA rates, and planned and actual appointment durations.

Slot analysis case study

 Background: The BI team analysed the appointments for all mental health clinical roles across a PCN, to understand appointment availability and planning, how the appointments were being used, and appointment duration and DNA rate.

Findings: The analysis took two months and results were really positive. The findings, presented to the PCN in a user-friendly format, showed:

• appointments for all staff were well-used, with a high volume of face-to-face slots
• DNA rates were acceptable
• the planned appointment duration of 29 minutes was inaccurate. Appointments were taking an average of 37.5 minutes, eight minutes more than planning allowed for

The findings helped the PCN’s practices improve their appointment mapping based on patient demand, and rethink their staff allocation to better meet that demand.

Contact us

If you think your practice would benefit from an appointment slot analysis, please get in touch: business.intelligence@onecare.org.uk

One Care is leading a project to increase the use of online medication ordering in our region’s care homes. The aim is not only to save valuable staff time in the homes, but also to benefit GP practices by improving accuracy and reducing the administrative burden.

Historically, to order medication for care home residents, staff filled in paper forms and sent them to the relevant GP surgery. As well as being time consuming for the homes, manual ordering of medication is open to potential errors such as incorrect dosage or frequencies, overordering, and difficulties with tracking and auditing.

Morgan Daly, One Care’s digital transformation lead, said: “Our project is encouraging care homes to accurately order their patients’ medications online through Patient Access. We manage the entire set up process, so general practices don’t have to take on any additional workload.”

The project team collects the details of every member of care home staff who requires proxy access to order medication – approximately three per care home. One Care contacts the relevant GP practice and arranges EMIS access for each proxy user, linking them to the resident’s patient record. Once access is granted, One Care completes all work on behalf of the practice, relieving it of any accompanying tasks.

Morgan said: “One Care setting up the relevant access saves practices on average a whole day of admin time. Across BNSSG to date, this works out to over £11,000 in savings.

“Proxy access also halves the time care home staff spend ordering each resident’s medication, reducing the time spent from approximately one hour to 30 minutes.”

Online ordering also means both the care home and practice can easily see all medications, doses and frequency, which helps with tracking and auditing.

To date, One Care’s team has visited 58% of care homes in BNSSG, and of those homes 32% now have proxy access.

Kate Francis, practice manager at Air Balloon Surgery in St George, said: “We were aware proxy medication ordering for care homes was something many practices had found really helpful. We were struggling to find the resources to work it through and to get the care homes up and running. The homes all struggle a lot with digital development, so we knew they would need a lot of time and support and our resources are very stretched.

“It was reassuring to have expert leadership from One Care. The team was able to get things in place and make it all happen in a way we would not have been able to do.  We did not need to understand the care home end of things, as the One Care team did all of this.

“We know without the One Care input we still would not have this in place.”

Robotic process automation (RPA) technology mimics human actions and interacts with digital systems to carry out basic manual and repetitive tasks. But does it work in a general practice setting? And will it really release time and save money? 

Last year, our digital team assessed GP Automate’s RPA system to see if it was safe and useable for practices. It was a relatively new system, and a practice considering using it requested a full emerging technology review.  

Following the review, the GPCB’s digital strategy group (DSG) agreed to examine the general suitability and usefulness of RPA for practices in BNSSG. This pilot aimed to be a ‘proof of concept’ of the application of RPA in general practice, to inform and promote understanding of the technology and how it may be applied. 

Morgan Daly, One Care’s digital strategy transformation lead, said: “We invited expressions of interest from practices, and asked them to highlight the challenges they were hoping to overcome using RPA. The survey responses showed practices were hoping to free up administrative and clinical time, while maintaining high quality care for patients 

“Based on these responses, it was agreed our pilot project would test the benefit of GP Automate’s filing of lab results. Thirteen practices have now signed up to take part.” 

Practices could benefit from GP Automate’s system, as it removes the need for staff to process normal lab reports with enhanced features (see image below). Patients can be sent the results via AccuRx and their records are automatically updated. This all means reports are filed and actioned quickly and accurately in line with practice preferences, releasing time for clinical and admin staff.  

Morgan added: “We have bi-monthly meetings with the practices involved in the pilot to share feedback and any issues or concerns, so any problems can be fixed quickly. To date, 29,588 lab reports have been filed using RPA, saving estimated total costs of £49,000 across the 13 practices.” 

During a recent clinical review session, one practice agreed the pilot had been a positive experience. The team was fully supportive of the changes and was excited about the potential. Another practice appreciated having fewer results to action as a large portion are now automated. Other practices reported that the implementation phase was somewhat challenging, as it required the clear mapping and standardisation of practice processes. However, there was general agreement that once implemented, refinements to get the most out of the product should be more straightforward. 

Dr. Arun Notaney, the CEO of GP Automate said: “Our company is dedicated to transforming primary care through automation, with a mission to give valuable time back to general practice teams. Our automation solutions are crafted by GPs, for GPs, ensuring the technology is tailored precisely to the needs of the healthcare professionals. By automating manual tasks, we streamline workflows, reduce administrative burdens, and ultimately enhance the quality of patient care.” 

As the pilot progresses, work is starting on evaluating the suitability and advantages of RPA to general practice and potential other good ‘use case’ for the application of this technology. The results will be available in spring 2025. 

 One Care has negotiated a cost reduction for any BNSSG practice wishing to adopt GP Automate, from 28p to 23p per patient. 

 The following video is a demo of GP Automate, showing what its automated lab results process offers:

If you are interested in learning more about the project and how your practice could benefit from RPA, please contact our digital team: digital@onecare.org.uk 

More information on GP Automate is also available here.