A DEVON project that increases GP access locally through new digital technology has won a prestigious HSJ Partnership Award, recognising an outstanding contribution to healthcare.

The scheme, which is a collaboration between NHS Devon, Delt Shared Services and Integy, won the ‘Virtual Care Project of the Year’ and received a silver award in the ‘Best Healthcare Provider Partnership with the NHS’ category.

The project, called GP in the Cloud (GPitC), enables GPs located anywhere in the UK to carry out consultations with Devon patients from their own devices. GPitC uses a secure cloud-based virtual desktop to provide access to practice IT systems, without requiring IT equipment to be physically shared.

Practices using GPitC have reported that they improved access, were more resilient when impacted by unplanned staff absence and found significantly reduced costs to practices. GPitC technology is now embedded as the ‘business as usual’ model across Devon.