New GP payment service going live

A new service for calculating payments for GP practices goes live across England this Thursday.

The Calculating Quality Reporting Service will replace the Quality Management and Analysis system for the 2013-2014 financial year.

CQRS will assess GP practice achievement against the Quality & Outcomes Framework, directed enhanced services and other clinical services.

QMAS will operate until 2 July to allow for end-of-year activities for QOF.

Existing data from QMAS has been migrated to CQRS, giving users ongoing access to their QOF reports from previous years.

Since 2004, QMAS has been responsible for calculating nearly £1.2 billion worth of payments per annum.

CQRS training sessions for GP practices and area teams started last month to prepare users for the switchover.

The new service is designed to reduce the time GP practices spend calculating achievement and payments.

It will also be used for calculating achievement of nationally-commissioned enhanced services, services commissioned locally which go beyond the GP contract and services that rely on data from secondary care sources.

CQRS will get data via the new General Practice Extraction Service, developed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Beverley Bryant, NHS England’s director of strategic systems and technology, said credit must be given to the HSCIC for delivering CQRS under “challenging circumstances”.

“Feedback from the pilot sites has been particularly positive and we look forward to CQRS playing an integral part of the end-to-end service to support commissioners and service providers across the NHS,” she said.