To what extent are practices 'paperless' and what are the constraints to them becoming more so?

A questionnaire was sent to all practice managers in Wessex in June 1997 to assess to what extent practices had stopped relying on paper records in the consultation. Practices that solely used computer records in the consultation ('noteless') did not necessarily consider themselves 'paperless'. Following a recent declaration that all practices should be using an Electronic Health Record by March 2005, the obstacles to this move were investigated and some differences in the way the 'noteless' and 'paperless' groups used computers were identified.