Your GP Guide healthcare website

Based at Manchester University, the National Primary Care Research and Development Centre (NPCRDC) is a multi-disciplinary, academically independent centre, established by the Department of Health in 1995 to undertake a programme of policy related research in primary care. NPCRDC aims to deliver high quality, policy relevant research to inform the development of primary health care and to communicate research findings to promote the development of evidence-based primary health care.

The Your GP Guide website

The Your GP Guide website formed part of the £320,000 PRIDE research project at NPCRDC. The PRIDE (Public Release of Information: a Developmental Evaluation) project undertook major research into the sorts of information that patients at general practices find useful and
interesting. A website was required to support the project and to prototype different web tools for delivering information to patients.

The prototype website was extremely well received by both patients and GPs and so in September 2005 work began to transform the prototype into a fully operational system. The system was the first of its kind in the country and gave GPs the facility to instantly publish upto-date information about their practices and contextualised performance data on the Your GP Guide website. Some people compared Your GP Guide to a “MySpace for GPs”, an easy-to-use tool for connecting and communicating with patients.

In June 2006, the fully operational Your GP Guide website was introduced to over 20,000 GPs and Practice Managers in a nationwide mailing and website promotion. The website won endorsement from the Royal College of General Practitioners and, following a year of successful operation and continued development, negotiations began for the sale of the system to the Department of Health. The Department of Health was quick to realise the significance of the Your GP Guide system and was keen to adopt the feature set.

The sale of the system to the Department of Health was completed in April 2008 and Your GP Guide innovations have now been incorporated into the NHS Choices website.

Expert web development and consultancy from Agidea

As with most of our clients, NPCRDC approached us after word of mouth recommendation. With a strong reputation for building secure and scalable web applications, Agidea was an obvious choice of partner for collaboration on the Your GP Guide project. Over a 3 year period a team of senior developers from Agidea took the Your GP Guide website from prototype through to production system, being on hand to deliver a full range of development, consultancy and support services. Agidea was integral to the success of the Your GP Guide project and Sam Flanagan was credited as a co-inventor of the system under the intellectual property licensing agreement.

Collaborative partnerships

Key to Agidea's success is the formation of collaborative partnerships with our clients. Gaining a detailed understanding of the aims and rationale behind the Your GP Guide research was vital for us in delivering the highest quality technical solution. Our consultants were able to integrate with the NPCRDC Your GP Guide steering group, together maintaining outstanding results throughout the project. We were also able to work in close cooperation with the IT professionals based at NPCRDC and the University on issues of website and database hosting and specialist data analysis. Our understanding of business objectives, collaborative working methods and technical expertise in Microsoft .NET were crucial to the success of the Your GP Guide project.

“Sam Flanagan and Agidea Technology Consulting were integral to the success of the Your GP Guide project.”
Jenny Noble – Your GP Guide Project Lead, NPCRDC

“The Royal College of General Practitioners is delighted to support the Your GP Guide website. Quality patient care is at the heart of the RCGP agenda, as is patient involvement. The Your GP Guide website will enable patients to be better informed about their practice and so strengthen the doctor-patient relationship.”
Dr Mayur Lakhani – Chairman of the RCGP Council