§ Mr. NormanTo ask the Secretary of State for Health whether additional resources will be made available to general practitioners using the EMIS system to migrate to the new Care Records Service. [176748]
§ Mr. HuttonThe national programme for information technology (NPfIT) has awarded a number of contracts to local service providers (LSPs) to act as prime contractors to deliver the elements of the NPfIT in a geographical area. It is the primary responsibility of the LSPs to work with national health service health care providers, including general practitioners, to deliver the solutions that the NHS needs. This will include working with EMIS and other primary care system providers to ensure that the systems currently in use across the NHS conform to the national standards required and can be upgraded to integrate with new national applications as they come on line. If this is not the case, GPs will be offered a choice of a new compliant system. The costs of this have been included in funding allocations for the NPfIT and to the NHS.