Dudley Practice Management Alliance
Update from Primary Care Commissioning
March 2013
Contents
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NHS Commissioning Board Update
Contacting us
Contract Management
QOF
QMAS
CQRS
GPES and Smartcard
Enhanced Services
PRIMIS Hub Membership
NHS Commissioning Board
The Primary Care Team of the NHS Commissioning Board is split into 3 areas, Pharmacy/Optometry,
Dental and General Practice (Medical). I have attached the organisation chart for the GP team only.
As far as we know at present we may work in geographical teams i.e.
 Dudley, Wolverhampton and Walsall.
 Sandwell and Heart of Birmingham.
 Birmingham South, East, North and Solihull
This will give both staff of the Area Team and practices an opportunity to get to know each other
and have a point of contact. Practices need to be prepared to work with Contract Managers they do
not know this will likely necessitate full information to be submitted when required.
The base will be St Chads Court, Hagley Road, Birmingham; however, the date of the move is yet to
be announced.
Again, presently we do not know what our remit will be under the new organisation apart from
commissioning primary care services
As soon as we have definite dates for office moves we will update all practices providing new details
Contacting Us
Fax – the Primary Care Commissioning Fax has been taken out of service due to us running out of
ink.
Email is still the best way to contact us as we are out at other locations across the cluster.
We will be moving to nhs.net email accounts shortly, however, we will notify practices at that point.
Contract Management
By now all practices should have submitted the contract monitoring document which needs to be
signed by partners. If you have not yet submitted, please do so to the
primarycare.contracts@dudley.nhs.uk by end of week.
These will be reviewed once the team are based together (April 2013) and any declarations missing
at that point will constitute a breach of terms of the contract.
The Area Team reserves the right to visit a contractor to verify submitted declarations.
QOF
Current Business Rules is v.24 (Read Codes) which can be found at
http://www.pcc-cic.org.uk/general-practice/contracts
We are now in the final phase of the year; practices should be entering non clinical achievement as
per the QOF declarations submitted earlier.
Please ensure that you have robust evidence onsite for all indicators claimed.
Clinical Indicators – again, ensure that supporting evidence is available within the clinical record on
your system especially around
 Clinical Reviews
 Disease Register Validations
 Exception Reporting
Any issues regarding QMAS, please refer to QMAS helpdesk 0845 601 6907.
For password resets, please email Anna.nicholls@dudley.nhs.uk with your login number and I will
reset at first opportunity
Quality and Productivity Indicators
Practices should now be finalising the reports for QP 8, 11 and 14, unless they have received a letter
stating they did not achieve QP 12, 6 or 9.
The completed report must be submitted to the QOF.contractingevidence@dudley.nhs.uk email
address by 31st March 2013. Please note: all sections must be completed in full to achieve points.
Any received after this date will not be eligible for achievement
Please DO NOT enter any achievement for QP 8, 11 or 14 as these will be signed off between CCG
and Primary Care Contracting, at which point QMAS reports will be updated.
QMAS Year End Sign Off
This must be completed by end of May to ensure all practices are paid prior to QMAS being
terminated in June. As a team we will be undertaking a higher number of practices, many of which
are unknown to us, therefore, we would value your co-operation as always to get final payments and
adjustments out.
The Area Team reserves the right to visit a contractor to verify submitted declarations pre and post
payment.
CQRS
All practices should have registered for CQRS (the new QMAS) and undergone or booked the first set
of training.
Initial modules are via webinars and practices need to register with these to ensure you received
further modules.
At present, we are not sure who will undertake the administration of CQRS but again, as we find out
we will keep you informed.
CQRS not only collects data for QOF but for Directed Enhanced Services as well, therefore it is
important that key members of practices have the training and appropriate accounts.
Further information can be found at
http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/cqrs
General Practice Extraction Service
All QMAS Account holders should have received the following email from Connecting for Health
Dear QMAS User,
We are writing to you as a registered user of the Quality Management and Analysis System
(QMAS). You were contacted at the end of 2012 to advise you of the closure of the Quality
Management and Analysis System (QMAS). From 2013/14 payments to General Practice will be
provided by two new services – the Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) and the General
Practice Extraction Service (GPES).
CQRS will be capable of calculating achievement and payments on quality services delivered by
general practices such as QOF, nationally commissioned enhanced services and services
commissioned locally by general practices that go beyond the scope of the GP contract.
This email has been sent to provide you with some key information about GPES, including what
you need to do in order to prepare your General Practice.
GPES is being introduced by the Health and Social Care Information Centre to provide primary care
data for programmes approved by national NHS organisations that will improve patient care and
reduce health inequalities. Starting in April 2013, it will provide the data to CQRS that is needed to
calculate the payments made to General Practice through the Quality and Outcomes Framework
(QOF).
You will need an NHS Registration Authority Smartcard to access GPES. Access to Smartcards is
managed by Registration Authorities who are currently located within PCTs. Please contact your
local Registration Authority to ensure that your Smartcard is updated with the correct business
functions to use GPES from April 2013.
GPES follows an information governance process that has been approved by the National
Information Governance Board and the ethics committees of the British Medical Association and
the Royal College of General Practitioners. You can learn more about this on the GPES website
www.ic.nhs.uk/gpes .
Training is being provided for both CQRS and GPES. You may have previously registered for CQRS
training updates and if so and you work in a GP practice then you may also require GPES training
as well.
Training for GPES will be made available to practices by the Health and Social Care Information
Centre online from March 2013. Your GP system supplier will also provide support and guidance.
Together they will ensure that you do not have any problems in submitting your QOF data via
GPES for 2013/14.
Further information on GPES training is available on the GPES training page
www.ic.nhs.uk/gpestraining
** What do you need to do now? **
If you think that you are likely to be a user of GPES, you need to do the following:
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Register now to receive GPES updates, including dates when training materials will be
made available – www.ic.nhs.uk/gpes/signup
Contact your Registration Authority to update your Smartcard with the GPES business
functions
Liaise with your GP clinical system supplier to ensure that your system is ready for GPES
From March onwards, complete the GPES online training modules to familiarise yourself
with the service
If you are no longer a user of QMAS or if this message is not relevant to you, please forward the
message on to a more appropriate person within your organisation.
Please contact the GPES team with any questions via enquiries@ic.nhs.uk, quoting GPES in the
subject line.
In order to update your smartcard, please complete an RA02 form and submit to Rebecca Ford at
the PCT who will update for you.
Enhanced Services
All practices should have received three letters concerning Enhanced Services
 Letter One – from Primary Care Contracting Team on 13th February 2013 detailing the
transition of Enhanced Services
 Letter Two – from Public Health – detailing Enhances Services being carried forward and new
processes
 Letter Three – from CCG – detailing Enhances Services being carried forward and new
processes
For the following Directed Enhanced Services - Learning Disabilities, Alcohol and Patient
Participation, claims including evidence must be submitted to primarycare.contracts@dudley.nhs.uk
by last working day of April.
PRIMIS Hub Membership
Practices are reminded that they have paid membership to PRIMIS Hub until August 2013. Please
see what is available via http://www.primis.nottingham.ac.uk/hub/
Best wishes
Anna Nicholls