The Department of Health has issued guidance to GP practices on how its £10m survey on GP patient access and choice at referral will work next month.
GPs will be paid 2.8p per registered patient for handing out choice surveys between January and March and will also be able to send choice questionnaires to patients referred since 1 September.
The resulting data will be used to assess GP performance against the choice element of the choice and booking directed enhanced service (DES). The booking element of the DES is measured using a separate monthly report generated by the Choose and Book system.
The DH says it has budgeted £10m for the choice and access surveys and says first class post will be used for the surveys as organiser IPSOS MORI has negotiated a discount with Royal Mail and it is the most cost effective method.
The DH guidance states that choice surveys should be issued to patients between 21 January and 28 March. Practices participating in the DES will receive a questionnaire pack from IPSOS MORI in the week beginning 14 January, and are expected to identify suitable patients for the survey.
The guidance emphasises that practices should ensure questionnaires are only issued to eligible patients, classified as being over 18 and those who have not been referred for cancer, urgent heart conditions, stroke, mental health and maternity services as well as any locally agreed exclusions.
It says failure to issue questionnaires to eligible patients only could have an impact on the assessed level of achievement and therefore qualification for payment. Under the DES, GPs are entitled to 24p per patient if at least 60% of patients agree that they were offered a choice of provider based on the results of the survey.
The GP Patient Survey also assesses achievement against the DES for access to GP services. Following concerns about confidentiality, the DH dropped plans to use Apollo software to identify patients for the questionnaire and instead will use the Exeter system to identify patients at random.
Questionnaires for the access DES will be sent out by IPSOS MORI between 7 January and 11 January.
Results from both surveys will be available to PCTs and practices in May and published nationally in June.
Last year’s survey was completed by more than 2.5 million patients. The survey showed that most patients were satisfied with the access provided by their practice and 94% of people who were referred by a GP discussed choice of hospital.
The choice and booking DES will end on 31 March and the BMA has said it will not be asking for it to continue in 2008/9.
Fiona Barr