English practices earn £119,000 a year from QoF

Tags: GPs QoF Quality Wales

28 Sep 2007

GP practices in England earned just under £119,000 from the Quality and Outcomes Framework last year, achieving 95.5% of the total points available.

Statistics published by the Information Centre show that practices in England achieved an average of 954.5 points, 95.5% of the 1000 points available.

Last year practices earned 96% of the points available so GPs have essentially maintained their performance despite substantial revisions to the QoF for 2006/7.

There was, however, a sizeable fall in the percentage of practices achieving maximum points, down from 9.7% in 2005/6 to 5.1% this year.

Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA’s General Practitioner Committee, said the results showed how hard practices had worked to achieve the new standards in the QoF.

He added: “It has already been predicted that more than 9,500 heart related problems, including heart attacks and strokes, will be prevented over the next five years largely because of the Quality and Outcomes Framework. That’s work that will save many thousands of lives, it will prevent the misery of illness and it will save the NHS money.”

Figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for 2006/7 were also published in the last few days.

Links

Information Centre: QoF Scores for England

Scottish and NI GPs top 97% on QoF

Reader's Comments

QOF and practice finance

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

30 Sep 07 19:09

Comments on earnings from QOF always read as though good performance - and this is performance related pay - by a practice was the same thing as individual profit - which, in GP terms, is the difference between income coming into the practice and practice expenses allocated by partnership share. General practices are efficient - one of the reasons the cost of the NHS has historically been so low compared to GDP - and maximise all income streams: the ones that don't are at risk: very difficult to attract new partners to a sinking ship... Since the new GMS contract (and reduction of core income, which ought to be the vehicle for basic practice costs), performance related pay forms a vital part of basic income in general practice. Don't shoot us - after all, the problem is that general practices are actually performing as required!

QOF payments earned per practice

01 Oct 07 10:10

QOF payments are paid to (and earned by) the GP practice >business< NOT an individual practitioner as the headline on this article seems to state!

1. There are on average between three and four GP partners per practice

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/74/table/T1

2. Practices have employees e.g. receptionists, plus typically a practice manager and one or more practice nurses

3. Practices maintain premises and equipment at their own expense

4. Taxes are payable by the business

Ergo an individual GP is unlikely to see even a tenth of the annual figure (before personal tax) suggested in the headline of this article.

The high QOF performances across the board took HM Govt by surprise. However QOF data suggests (with the opportunity cost of bean counting) that the vast majority of GPs were already doing a very good job.

There is little extra to be squeezed from committed healthcare professionals by centrally devised 'incentives': a lesson the DoH would do well to extrapolate to the wider NHS context.

Dr Malcolm H Duncan

Medical Object Oriented Software

COI: I am not and never have been a GP

What have you got against English GPs?

07 Oct 07 14:10

Is this another example of anti-English GP spin? "Scottish and NI GPs top 97 per cent on QoF 25 Sep 2007" They did very well - better, in fact, than the English GPs - 95.5%. Why are their results commented on by percentage while the results for England are commented on as pounds earned? It's really sad when even EHI joins in the GP bashing! ;->>