INPS Helpline Blog

INPS Helpline are now on Twitter!

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:59:46 GMT

We are pleased to announce that INPS Helpline now has a presence on Twitter! You can receive service updates and notification of new Helpline blog articles by following @inpshelpline on Twitter.

If you have registered your mobile phone to your twitter account, you can get our updates sent to you via SMS, ensuring you never miss an article being published. More details on how to do this can be found on the Twitter website here.

Incoming GP2GP Messages assigned to the SYS account

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:10:27 GMT

INPS are currently investigating a bug regarding incoming GP2GP messages that are being assigned automatically to the SYS account.
The result of this issue is that, unless a staff member has access to the SYS account mailbox in Mail Manager they will not be able to see the incoming GP2GP records unless they have access to the SYS account in Mail Manager.

At present the work around is to give staff members access to the SYS mail in Control Panel > Mail Maintenance.

If your practice receive GP2GP messages and experience this issue please apply the workaround below until we release a permanent fix for problem via a DLM release.

Workaround - Add Access Rights to another user's mail

In this example, Dr Alison Hill is going to be allowed rights to the SYS account's mail.

Select the Staff Access tab in Mail Maintenance, Control Panel.
Right click on the name of the staff member who is being given access rights to another person's mail, e.g. Dr Hill, and select Add.
On the Access Rights - Add screen, select the person from the picklist to which the staff member is allowed access, e.g. Mr System Supervisor. You cannot multi-select. The picklist has all the staff members that the user does not currently have rights to view.
The Access valid from date defaults to today and the Valid until is blank. If the staff member is allowed rights from now on for an undefined time, leave these as they are and just press OK. If there is a limited period, such as a holiday, that the staff member is allowed rights, enter the start and finish dates here in Access valid from and the Valid until.
Click OK
Repeat steps 2-5 for any other staff members who require access to the SYS account

This information can also be found in the Mail Manager help file.

If you require additional help please call the Helpline

Notice of Choose and Book Activity - Friday 3rd September

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:14:21 GMT

The following notice has been issued by CfH:

Maintenance

A piece of service impacting work is scheduled for the Choose and Book service which will result in the service being unavailable for the times stated below. The activity is a Disaster Recovery simulation test. This test is required in order to provide further assurance that the Choose and Book service can be recovered with minimal impact to service in the event of major failure.

One additional and parallel change is scheduled to be implemented whilst the DR exercise is underway. This change will be performed on the production system whilst testing is underway on the DR service and is needed to add additional storage to the production system.

Date & Time

Start: Fri. 3rd Sept. 22:00

Finish: Sat. 4th Sept. 06:30

Service Affected: Choose and Book

Outage Duration: 8 hours, 30 mins

Service Affected Impact:

The production service will be unavailable for the duration of the testing and therefore no new or updated appointments can be made.
No users will be able to access the production service for the duration of the downtime.
Due to the exercise the normally scheduled SaFE extract run will not be run on Saturday morning. The SaFE script will be modified to ensure data from the 3rd & 4th is picked up from the scheduled run on Sunday (5th) morning.
Scheduled Slot Polls will run once live service is restored at the end of the outage

Apologies for any inconvenience this work may cause. If you experience any issues outside of the date and time specified above you should report them in the usual way.

Influenza Audits 2010-11 (Updated 13/08/2010)

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:56:41 GMT

We know that all practices need to start the call of patients for Seasonal Influenza Vaccination in the near future as the programme commences on 1st September. INPS have written the audits that are needed to match the new Seasonal Influenza Criteria as announced by the CMO in June this year

http://helpline.inps.co.uk/uploads/aug10/CMO%20LETTER%20-%20The%20Influenza%20Immunisation%20Programme%202010-11.pdf

The criteria for this was published by the Department of Health and can be seen here:

http://helpline.inps.co.uk/uploads/aug10/100607%20specification%20influenza%20patient%20survey%202010-11_FINAL.doc

UPDATE 13/08/2010: However, this did not include any Read Codes for the clinical cohorts of patients. The audits have been written to include the new criteria and date ranges but we are still waiting for the Read Codes, it is unlikely that there will be substantial changes to the Read Codes so we are publishing the audits here with the Read Codes from last year but with all date parameters changed for 2010-11 so practices can get some idea of the numbers of patients who will require vaccination this year, please be aware that this is subject to change and should be used with care.

When we have the Read Code set the updated audits will be put in the usual place on the Clinical Audit webpage.

Connections issues this morning

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:01:34 GMT

Earlier this morning, multiple sites nationwide across different software systems were experiencing N3 connection issues impacting numerous applications which connect via the N3 network.

BT N3 have advised the issue is believed as resolved following a 4 minute break in the ADSL part of the Core Transmission Network between 09:44 and 09:48. Initial feedback from reporting parties show connections have been restored, monitoring and investigation into the route cause continues.

If any Vision sites are continuing to experience connection problems, they should contact the Helpline on their usual support number.