Background
There is a long standing requirement to make Verified User Account communications (issued to Patients by GP Practices, either electronically or via hard copy and also known as linkage key communications) standardised across all the principal clinical suppliers in order to ensure that Patients are able to easily identify the various GP Online services that are available to them – this includes all third party offerings and also the NHS App, all represented equally. Currently there isn’t anything mandated within the Standards to say that the communication must be consistent across all principal suppliers, so currently differing versions of these exist. We therefore need to uplift requirement GP-PPFS-4.5-01 of Standard Patient Information Maintenance - Standard to state that the provider supplier communication must include reference to web pages which list all the live suppliers and their products, along with some clear narrative that provides guidance for Patients who may wish to identify available services via a simple Google search.
Outline Plan
A “hidden” webpage (not linked to anything else on the NHS Website) has been created which contains the required narrative that we would like to incorporate within provider suppliers communication.
The Standard should now include an additional point referring suppliers to this webpage, in order to obtain the relevant text for inclusion in the VUA communications, i.e. “Solution to include standard Linkage information text and URLs as per https://digital.nhs.uk/services/gp-it-futures-systems/im1-standard
Provider suppliers given 3 months to make the relevant changes to the VUA Communications following publication of the Standard
Summary of Change
Requirement GP-PPFS-4.5-01 updated as shown below.
Patient Information Maintenance - Standard
Amendment:
Epic Mapping | Requirement ID | Requirement Text | Level |
---|---|---|---|
C13E4 | GP-PPFS-4.5-01 | VUA Credentials Generation Generate for a Citizen with a VUA the following information about the Practice and VUA Credentials:
| MUST |
Full Specification
The following new versions of existing Standards have now been published::
Patient Information Maintenance - Standard v2.1.0
Assurance Approach
Provider suppliers will be required to provide confirmation once the changes have been made and submit an updated copy of their VUA Communication for review.