GPAid– General Practitioners Aid (1984-1988)

​

This was developed in conjunctions with local GPs and consultants to automate GP surgeries and generate useful research data for the NHS. It included the following features:

​

• Notified patients for general appointments and routine inoculations etc.

​

• Extracted critical details from patient - doctor appointments 

​

• Monitored general and acute prescribing

​

• Identified allergies and adverse drug reactions

​

• Generated medical susceptibility profiles for patients from inherited and acquired medical problems 

​

• Created a database to allow rapid search for clinical trial correlation analysis - of use to the NHS or drug companies as extended clinical trial data.

​

Unfortunately, some doctors felt that this represented a loss of their control. 

We identified a test site in High Wycombe with 7 doctors and 20K patients which was prepared to transfer all their existing data into suitable digital format at their own expense, but they could not afford a 7-terminal network with server. At that time, hardware dominated most system costs.

​

We could not find any computer manufacturer who was prepared to underwrite this on a speculative basis. The best offer came from a very small UK company, Future Computers, which offered hardware at cost, but even that was too much.

We offered the system to the NHS but they were not interested.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​