PCNs and using SystmOne Organisation Groups

The following is from an email to surgeries in August 2020.

Hi SystmOne User Group members,

Short version for anyone already aware of Organisation Groups and considering using one across their PCN

Don’t click the option Allow reporting across entire group (indicated below) without in-depth discussion with the Data Protection Officers of every surgery involved to confirm if this would be legal data processing. By default, it would not be legal for you to do so within a PCN.

More detailed information

As you start to work more closely together you may wish to manage certain SystmOne content from a central location; this will help stop duplication of work and allow more consistent working between your multiple SystmOne units/surgeries.

What is a SystmOne Organisation Group?

You are likely already familiar with the Clinical Systems Team (and other organisations such as Ardens) publishing reports and other items across Suffolk; we do this using SystmOne Organisation Groups. This facility is also available to you in groups you agree and create.

What can we publish across an Organisation Group?

A PCN (or other group of SystmOne units) might use this to standardise content (Data Entry Templates, Word Letter Templates etc) or SystmOne layouts so a Nurse (or other role) working across multiple SystmOne units has the same screen layout at each site without having to manually arrange this in each unit.

Examples of content that can be published and maintained centrally:

• Reports & Report Outputs 
• Data entry templates 
• Protocols 
• Word Letter Templates 
• Auto-consultations
• Drug Formularies 
• Tree layouts 
• Toolbar layouts 
• Patient Status Alerts 
• Read Code Significance Rules 
• Questionnaires 
• Views 
• Forms 

What else can Organisation Groups do?

Technically, it’s possible to allow reporting across organisation groups; however, it is extremely important to understand that PCNs are not legal entities so cannot share patient data without full and documented data sharing agreements and suitable privacy notices. No PCN should try to enable reporting in their Organisation Groups without discussing this with the Data Protection Officers of every surgery involved to confirm if this would be legal data processing for all surgeries.

Where can we find out more about Organisation Groups?

A full document regarding Organisation Groups is available in SystmOne: Help > Support & FAQs > Documents & Training Guides

If I want to create an Organisation Group is there anything you’d suggest?

Please feel free to contact the Clinical Systems Team, but if you’re going it alone:

1. Discuss and plan using an Organisation Group with your sister-surgeries in your PCN, including with content builders/maintainers (templates/reports/toolbars etc).
   e.g. What will you use it for first? (etc) 
2. ‘Host’ the group from the largest surgery (by population) in the PCN as the Organisation Group owner.
   This will help if surgeries in PCNs ever choose to merge, even if that’s not currently planned or not planned until the distant future.
3. Only allow content to be published by the unit that owns/manages the group.
   Experience tells us that allowing every unit in a group to publish content leads to fragmentation and errors in the years to come. As organisation structures and staff re-shuffle, it can leave published content ‘orphaned’ with no easy way to update or delete it (we have plenty of these across the ICB organisation groups that were published by surgeries which is why we no longer allow this). 
4. Host the group under your existing ICB Organisation Group*
   The Group directory is a mess in all regions, this will help keep the Suffolk region organised going forward.

The group creation screen for a PCN should look similar to the attached: Your PCN name, your ICB org group , a description of your plans, Membership to be approved (to ensure units throughout the country can’t join freely).