Trading for the year was in line with management expectations, with higher margin core recurring revenues increasing as a growing number of GP practices moved onto EMIS-hosted servers and, as seen at the half year, continued subdued spending on lower margin hardware, engineering services and training. As a result of these trends, core recurring revenues comprised 81% of turnover for the year compared with 75% in 2009.

Following the accreditation of EMIS Web in September, as set out at the time of our IPO, we are in the process of putting in place the significant operational resource that will be needed during the deployment phase of EMIS Web to enable a managed acceleration of the roll-out during 2011 and beyond. As at 31 December 2010, EMIS Web had been successfully deployed at 44 GP practices, a further 1,665 practices had ordered the familiarisation service, allowing them to run EMIS Web alongside their existing system before upgrading, and 433 GP practices had ordered the system itself.

Government proposals, set out in the July 2010 White Paper for the transformation of healthcare delivery in the UK, are expected to open up new markets in relation to extended care and EMIS Web is well placed to take advantage of these developments. Of the first wave of 52 GP consortia announced to date, covering 1,860 (22%) of England's GP practices, EMIS is already a major supplier to 40 (77%) of these consortia. These pathfinder organisations will shape the way that GP consortia operate in the future.

In Scotland, EMIS increased its market share during 2010 from 12.7% (132 GP practices) at the start of the year to 51.5% (530 GP practices) as at 31 December 2010.

In August 2010, the acquisition of 78.9% of RX Systems Limited ("RX") enabled EMIS to extend its reach into the adjacent healthcare IT area of pharmacy systems, in line with the Group's stated strategy. The integration of RX continues as planned and, as previously announced, management expects the acquisition to be earnings enhancing in the first full year of ownership. Since acquisition, RX’s share of the available retail pharmacy market has increased from 20.5% to 25%.

Sean Riddell, EMIS CEO, said: "The considerable interest in EMIS Web shown by GP practices is pleasing, with increasing numbers of orders since we received accreditation and favourable initial feedback from those GP practices where EMIS Web has already been deployed. The current environment continues to offer opportunities for EMIS, but our key focus remains on the controlled roll-out of EMIS Web."

EMIS Group is the UK's leading supplier of software and related services to GP practices. 53.8% of GPs in the UK use an EMIS system, and EMIS software holds approximately 39 million patient records.

Related news articles:

• EMIS' Profile

About EMIS Group plc
EMIS' core activities include software licensing and support, hardware support and maintenance services, hardware sales, third party software sales and training services.

The Group's software includes all of the functionality specified in NHS accreditation standards for GPs, including holding the patient's cradle to grave electronic healthcare record, practice appointment booking systems and consultation and intelligent prescribing modules.

EMIS Web represents the next generation of clinical software systems and the Directors believe it has the potential to transform the delivery of healthcare by enabling GPs and other healthcare practitioners to connect with each other and securely share access to a patient's cradle to grave electronic health record.

RX's market share is based on latest available data from the National Pharmaceutical Association as at March 2010.

Established in 1987, EMIS' shares were listed on AIM under the trading symbol EMIS.L following a successful fundraising in March 2010.