Make Sure You Don’t Miss…

Key updates for GPs and general practice teams to be aware of.

NHS England have highlighted an issue affecting e-RS referrals from Systmone and EMIS practices from 9th October 2026. Please see below communication from NHS England:

Commissioners (to practices)

An issue was introduced in e-RS release 16.9 on the 9th of October, affecting the Clinical Information Summary when sent from SystmOne and EMISWeb.

Users are unable to view the Clinical Information Summary details in e-RS and an error will occur if trying to download the information as a PDF. This affects all referrals created since 22:51 on the 9th until a fix was applied on the 12th of October at around 3pm.

This fix prevents the problem for all referrals created after it was applied but does not correct already affected referrals. Please make your practices aware that they may be contacted by providers asking them to resend the information to e-RS.

NHS England continues to work on a separate fix for affected referrals.

The 2026/27 GP contract includes a requirement that patients identified by practices as clinically urgent must be dealt with on the same day. This is intended to support timely access to care for patients where delay may result in harm or deterioration. It is for the GP practice to determine which patients are clinically urgent. The Recording same day appointments for all clinically urgent patients’ guidance has been published to support practices in appropriately coding clinically urgent appointments.

Please note that this corrected Q2 Core LES Reconciliation Form should be used, rather than the one linked in the ICB Primary Care Newsletter of 08 October 2026.

NHS England have issued updated guidance for employers on cases of unauthorised, inappropriate and unjustifiable access to confidential patient information. NHS England Chief Executive Officer Sir Jim Mackey’s letter states that “in almost all cases, such unauthorised access to patient records constitutes gross misconduct, and that our actions as employers must now reflect the severity of wrongdoing when patient confidentiality is breached.” Read the letter and guidance.