Pre migration tasks

Pre migration tasks help you to prepare, plan and organise.

In this stage, the 2 main task categories are communication and data preparation. Other pre migration tasks are the technical survey and training.

You must make sure you understand what activities to do before the migration. You also need to consider how to plan tasks around your practice’s needs.

The people, teams or organisations who might be required in this stage of the migration are:

• project manager
• practice manager
• practice staff 
• integrated care board (ICB)  
• IT delivery partner (such as commissioning support unit) 
• NHS England Information Governance team  
• IT lead   
• current clinical system supplier 
• new clinical system supplier 
• third-party system suppliers

You should contact all third parties that connect with, or support your system. Find out when they need to disconnect from the old system and reconnect to the new one. 

SMS text messaging service providers 

Decide how to capture and store SMS messages during the cutover period. 

NHS App and other patient access apps 

Confirm with your IT team whether the IM1 pairing integration credentials will change. 

Liaise with third parties to minimise service disruptions for patient app logins. 

Re-verify patient email addresses if the new system needs it. 

Look for the verification checkbox in the current system. Verify each patient’s email before migration. 

Unverified emails may cause issues during migration.

Patient online services 

Confirm with the supplier whether existing IDs will work in the new system. 

Contact Patient Online Services to issue new patient access IDs if required. 

Pathology labs and other third service providers 

Notify providers such as:

• pathology labs
• screening services and hospitals
• 111
• Out of Hours 

Agree on a date with third party links and pathology labs to switch off links. This should be before the cutover period begins. 

Pharmacies and prescription services 

Notify these services about the migration and when to switch off links. Examples of these services include: 

• prescription services, like Electronic Prescription Service
• vaccination event records, like Pinnacle

Make sure you can order from pharmacy suppliers with the new system. If the migration disrupts ordering, find a temporary workaround. 

Primary Care Support England 

Notify Primary Care Support England of the migration and follow up with any actions. 

Third-party solutions (for example, DocMan or Apollo Scan) 

Notify third-parties of the change. You should do this whether you are going to migrate away from, or integrate with them. The notice period will vary depending on the system. 

To let patients know about upcoming system changes you can: 

• display posters in your practice well in advance of the changes 
• add information about the changes to the practice website
• enlist the help of patient participation groups (PPGs) who can help make sure all patients have new IDs after go live

During the migration, the practice may need to remove access to online services. Patients may need to re-register for online services with the new clinical system. You will need to plan how to notify them about this possible re-registration.

Review the quality of data in the current system. Correct any issues before the first data extraction. This may reduce the amount of issues to resolve during data checking. 

You can get advice on common or known data issues from:

• new clinical system supplier
• delivery partner
• commissioner

How to clean up the current clinical system data 

Request a database reconciliation. The practice database should be reconciled against the Primary Care Support England (PCSE) database. Learn more in the Guide to Patient Registrations.

Identify any local or practice created codes. Map them to the appropriate Read/SNOMED codes if available. 

Confirm which patients have any issues of un-mapped drug/medication codes. Map those drugs and devices according to the Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d).

Decide which letter and data entry templates should be transferred to the new system. These will need to be manually copied over. 

Identify patient records without NHS numbers and update the NHS number.

Clean up any generic patient names, like 'Baby' to avoid duplication.

Run updates or patches to the current system before data migration.

Your delivery partner should have requested a data extract from your current supplier. This should have happened as part of the initial preparation. 

If not, return to the information on procurement and initial preparation. This page outlines steps to request a data extract from your current supplier. You should talk to the supplier to ensure they can provide the data on the date requested. 

If you made the request yourself, ask for confirmation from your current supplier. The format of the data extract(s) must conform to the relevant data migration standard.

For other suppliers that you use, data may not be included in the main extract (for example, DocMan or Apollo Scan for document scanning and management). 

If you require a data extract from a third party, you should: 

• make your request at the same time as you place the order for the new system

• complete it at the same time as the main system extraction

• work with the relevant suppliers before booking key dates to ensure that they can also meet them 

• check whether you will need to log off the system before the data extract is generated

• be aware of potential reconfiguration needed by third parties after migration. This is to enable their services to integrate during post go live

This applies to both the initial data extract and the final data extract.

The new supplier will provide a set of test criteria for data checking. Before data checking, they will ask the practice to supply:

• a list of selected patients (approximately 20 patient records)
• various reports (such as QoF and target reports)

The new supplier, or delivery partner, will help with the initial selection of records. Then the practice will complete the selection unaided. Each supplier will give the practice a set amount of time to complete the task.