77475-16PATIENTS will soon be able to see how their local surgery fares, thanks to an enterprising Swindon GP.

Dr Gavin Jamie reckons it is about time people had easy access to performance data relating to surgies in the area.

Since April 2004, surgeries have been awarded government cash for meeting tough targets on conditions like high-cholesterol and diabetes.

But until now it's been difficult for patients to get their head around complicated medical jargon and performance charts.

Now all that is about to change with the launch of the new site.

Dr Jamie, of Whalebridge Practice, in Carfax Street, is developing a website that will give patients data they can understand.

Eventually, it is hoped patients across the country will be able to log on to the site and see just how good their GP is.

Dr Jamie, who has started collating information from Primary Care Trusts, stresses that the site www.gpcontract.co.uk is not a money-making venture.

And the site carries a warning that the data should not be used as the basis for choosing a practice.

"It could be a useful tool in determining how good a practice is," said Dr Jamie.

"But much of this information is at least as interesting for what it says about populations of patients as what it says about individual practices.

"Patients will be interested in this."

Dr Jamie says the technology will enable trends to be identified much more easily.

"It's pretty basic at the moment and I have only got data from 272 practices but it gives some idea of what is coming," he said.

"There is so much of this data around that it can be extremely confusing. I've tried to simplify it.

"In time we will be able to see where 'hot-spots' are for different conditions like epilepsy, diabetes and high cholesterol."

Dr Jamie is using the new Freedom of Information Act to gather the raw data.

The site should be complete at the end of August.

And Dr Jamie hopes to submit the research relating to the site for his Msc in Health Informatics.

Kevin Shoesmith