Royal College of GPs partnership, year two and three

The benefits of EPaCCS, which is Electronic Path of Care Coordination Systems, are many fold actually. I think the most important thing is they're of benefit to the patients, and there's a really good evidence base behind this. Because of evidence base medical practice, the development of EPaCCS is one of the things we should really get involved with, and NHSIQ has kept as a priority. So I think that supports that view. The reason being that, for patients, we know that it increases the probability of them achieving their wishes at the end of life.

And so if they've had important conversations about where they hope to end their life, what treatments they would like, what they wouldn't like, resuscitation status, if that can be recorded and shared electronically, so it's available out of hours to ambulance control, transfer hours doctors to hospitals, then there's a much greater chance of them getting their wishes. So I think that's really important.

From a doctor's point of view, it reduces uncertainty. And it allows one person to have a conversation about delicate issues recorded, and the fact that that conversation has taken place would be known to others. So if they don't start again, that's terribly frustrating for medics and nurses, if you have to repeat difficult conversations, and also that's bad for patients.

There's also evidence that it's good for society, because if more people achieve a good end of life experience in the place of their choice, it actually can reduce costs in a health economy. So I think, when you add all this together, of all the things that it's worth sorting out in a community, it's a good functioning EPaCCS or Electronic Path of Care Coordination System.