Written by Technical Team | Last updated 23.01.2026 | 8 minute read
GP Connect is a national service provided by NHS England to facilitate seamless data sharing with GP Practice systems (EMIS and SystmOne) for the purpose of providing direct patient care.
At 6B, we work to support organisations in developing and implementing GP Connect efficiently and effectively. If you are looking to integrate with GP Connect at your organisation, here’s a comprehensive guide to help introduce your team to the integration process, key considerations, and best practices to ensure a successful deployment.
GP Connect is an innovative service provided by NHS England allowing health and social care professionals to share, view, and act on patient information across different IT systems. This system ensures that patient care remains continuous and informed, even when providers use different platforms. It is essential to note that GP Connect is strictly for direct patient care and cannot be used for planning, commissioning, population health, analytics, or research purposes.
At its core, GP Connect reduces fragmentation across the healthcare system. By enabling structured and real-time access to GP-held data, clinicians can make better-informed decisions, reduce duplication, improve patient safety, and enhance the overall care experience. This is particularly valuable in urgent and unscheduled care settings, extended access services, and integrated care models.
To get started with understanding GP Connect, check out the NHS England website here: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/gp-connect
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GP Connect provides a range of capabilities that can be implemented individually or as part of a broader digital strategy, depending on organisational needs and maturity. These include:
Each capability has its own technical, clinical, and operational considerations, and organisations should carefully assess which capabilities align with their use case and service model.
GP Connect includes several distinct capabilities, and each one comes with different delivery implications for clinical workflows, assurance, and technical design. The table below gives a quick comparison to help teams choose the right starting point and avoid common integration pitfalls.
All capabilities must be implemented for direct patient care only, with appropriate clinical safety and information governance controls in place.
| GP Connect capability | Best suited for | Key considerations to plan for |
|---|---|---|
| Access Record (HTML) | Fast, read-only viewing of the GP record during time-critical care (for example urgent care, out-of-hours, and cross-practice consultations). | Optimise for real-time viewing and safe navigation of large records, and design workflows that support clinician confidence and appropriate auditing. |
| Access Record (Structured) | Systems that need coded, machine-readable data (for example medications, allergies, problems and consultations) to support safer decisions and downstream workflow. | Implement robust patient matching and data presentation, handle clinical safety hazards around incomplete context, and plan for conformance testing against the published API profiles. |
| Appointments Management | Booking, changing, or cancelling GP appointments across organisations (for example extended access, PCN hubs, and service coordination). | Design for operational edge cases (slot availability, cancellation rules, future-only restrictions, and user permissions) and ensure resilience for peak demand. |
| Send Document | Sending clinical documents into the GP record (for example consultation summaries, discharge letters, and structured service outputs that must be visible in primary care). | Ensure correct document metadata and routing, support operational monitoring for delivery failures, and align local governance so the receiving practice can safely process inbound documents. |
To gain access to GP Connect, your organisation must comply with several requirements:
In addition to these formal prerequisites, organisations should ensure they have adequate internal governance, information governance support, clinical leadership, and technical capacity before embarking on integration.
Key takeaway: GP Connect integration is not just a technical API project — it requires early clinical safety involvement, robust information governance, and alignment with NHS England assurance processes. Organisations that plan for GP Connect onboarding, DCB0160 clinical risk management, and SCAL conformance from day one significantly reduce delays and rework when connecting to EMIS and SystmOne for direct patient care.
The GP Connect team at NHS England plays a crucial role in the integration process. They manage the GP Connect products, publish API specifications, provide clinical and technical assurance, and define onboarding processes. They also offer some local implementation support to help guide your GP Connect integration project to success.
The team works closely with system suppliers, provider organisations, and consumer organisations to ensure that integrations are safe, compliant, and aligned with national policy. Early engagement with the GP Connect team can significantly reduce delivery risk and prevent delays later in the process.
Provider Organisations: Typically, GP practices act as provider organisations. They hold GP patient records and control the data shared via GP Connect. Provider functionalities include sharing appointment books and providing access to patient records. At the time of writing this post, the two main GP systems in England are SystmOne and EMIS.
Providers retain control over access through configuration, data sharing agreements, and local policies. Engagement with GP practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs) is therefore critical when planning GP Connect-enabled services.
Consumer Organisations: Consumer organisations, such as NHS 111 services, urgent care providers, other GP practices, and digital health innovators, view the shared patient records or make bookings on behalf of patients. It’s possible for an organisation to function both as a provider and a consumer, especially in extended access and federated care models.
From a technical perspective, GP Connect integration requires careful planning. Consumer systems must:
Organisations should also consider how GP Connect fits into their wider system architecture, including integration engines, data stores, audit logging, and monitoring solutions.
Consumer systems must undergo rigorous testing to comply with GP Connect specifications. The Supplier Conformance Activities List (SCAL) facilitates this process by defining mandatory and optional conformance activities.
Upon successful testing and compliance, a Technical Conformance Certificate is issued, confirming that the system is ready for deployment.
A crucial aspect of consumer system assurance and integrating GP Connect is maintaining compliance with the Clinical Risk Management Standard DCB0160. This ensures the clinical safety of the system. Each consumer organisation must appoint a Clinical Safety Officer to review and accept the clinical safety case report and hazard log.
Clinical safety should not be treated as a one-off activity. Ongoing monitoring, incident management, and regular review are essential once the system is live.
Information governance underpins every GP Connect integration. Organisations must ensure:
Patients should also be informed about how their data is shared and used for direct care, in line with national transparency requirements.
Many organisations face similar challenges when integrating GP Connect, including unclear use cases, underestimating assurance effort, and insufficient stakeholder engagement. Early planning, realistic timelines, and expert support can mitigate these risks.
Testing with real-world scenarios, involving clinicians early, and maintaining close communication with NHS England are all critical success factors.
Going live with GP Connect is not the end of the journey. Organisations should establish:
Continuous improvement ensures that GP Connect delivers sustained value and adapts to evolving service needs.
At 6B, we provide end-to-end support for GP Connect integrations. This includes use case definition, technical architecture design, assurance support, clinical safety leadership, testing, and deployment planning.
Our experience across multiple GP Connect implementations allows us to anticipate challenges, accelerate delivery, and ensure compliance with NHS England standards.
Integrating with GP Connect can significantly enhance the quality and continuity of patient care by ensuring seamless data sharing across different IT systems.
At 6B, we are committed to supporting your organisation through this integration journey, providing the technical expertise and guidance necessary to meet NHS England’s stringent standards. By partnering with us, you can ensure a smooth, safe, and successful implementation of GP Connect in your digital health product.
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