SCOTTISH CLINICAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT IN PRIMARY CARE - SCIMP

By The College
Contact the author by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

RCGP Scotland hosts SCIMP (Scottish Clinical Information Management in Primary Care) which is a user group representing all five clinical systems used by Scottish Practices. SCIMP aims to provide advice and help in the implementation of national initiatives such as SPICE pc and SIGN guidelines, as well as simple guidance on how to make the best use of IT systems. SCIMP has recently developed a Good Practice Guide for IT ‘Making IT work for you’ to help practices get the best out of their IT systems. This guide has been compiled by a SCIMP working group and amalgamates advice and help already produced by practice managers, LHCCs, PCTs and users of clinical systems in Scotland. A version of the guide is available on the web (www.ceppc.org/scimp/gpg ) with downloadable forms, reminders and suggested policy documents, which can be customised for your own use.

SCIMP is also in the process of updating the READ Code booklet that was produced in November 2001. The new version will contain all the contract and exception codes and is hoped that it will be distributed to all practices at the end of March.

Cath MacDonald, Primary Care Project Manager for Information & Statistics Division of the Common Services Agency (ISD), is conducting a review of the roles and responsibilities of SCIMP. Set up in 1999, SCIMP has tried to represent the views of all Primary Care users of IT in many different National projects. As all sorts of innovations and developments are currently taking place, eg SCI store, ECCI, Electronic lab results and referrals and SCI-DC (diabetes), we felt that it was timely to review the position of SCIMP and ensure that it is providing a useful service to practices. If anyone would like to send in any opinions or recommendations please email Cath.MacDonald@isd.csa.scot.nhs.uk .

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.