QUALITY & OUTCOMES FRAMEWORK

Philip Leech

Key points• The QOF is voluntary - but practices that don’t

take part are likely to rely on the MPIG

• PMS practices can opt out of the national QOF -

but agreeing local variations will be hard work

• Non-computerised practices will be at a distinct

disadvantage

• Day-to-day delivery of the QOF will fall more on

practice nurses and practice managers than on GPs

Contents of QOF GuidanceActivities and milestones for 2004/5

Preparatory funding

Aspiration calculation and payment

Prevalence

Annual quality visits

Calculation of achievement points and payment

Ensuring equity and probity

IM&T and data flows

QOF review and adaptation

QOF Improvement Cycle

Review

QOF IMPROVEMENT

CYCLE

Planning

ActionLearning

QOF Activities for 2004/5

QOF 2004/5

Feb 2004 Agree

aspiration

Apr 2004Pay QPrep and QuIP

DES

April 2004QOF goes

live

April 2004DH guidance

on review visits

End April 2004

Monthly aspiration payments

August 2004QMAS system

goes live & provides monthly feedback

Oct 04 – Jan 05

Annual review visits take

place

April 2005 Achievement

payments made

Structure of the QOF - 1

• Clinical domain

- 76 indicators

- 10 disease areas (CHD, stroke/ TIA, cancer, hypothryroidism, diabetes, hypertension, mental health, asthma, COPD and epilepsy)

- 550 points

• Organisational domain

- 56 indicators

- 5 areas (records, information, patient communication, education and training, practice management and medicines management)

- 184 points

Structure of the QOF - 2

• Patient experience domain

- 4 indicators

- 2 areas (patient survey and consultation length)

- 100 points

• Additional services domain- 10 indicators

- 4 areas (cervical screening, child health surveillance, maternity services and contraceptive services)

- 36 points

Structure of the QOF - 3• Holistic care payments

- based on points scored in clinical domain

- 100 points

• Quality practice payments- based on points scored in organisational, patient experience and additional services domains

- 30 points

• Access bonus- based on achievement of 24/ 48 hour access target

- 50 points

Preparatory funding

• Quality Preparation Payments (QPrep)– Nov 2003: all receive payment (£9000 for practice with

average list size)– end Apr 2004: second payment (£3250 for average practice)

for practices participating in QOF

• Quality Information Preparation (QuIP) DES– to help practices summarise records, depending on list size

and amount of work– PCTs offer 2004 QuIP to practices by 1 Jan 2004– for 2005, schemes agreed before 1 Apr 2004 are paid to

practices with next monthly payment

Aspiration Payments• Arrangements for 2004/5

– practice and PCT agree aspiration points total– practice paid a third of this– not weighted by prevalence but weighted by relative list size

• Arrangements for 2005/6– practice paid on the basis of 60% of its achievement payment for

the previous year– weighted by prevalence and relative list size

• Aspiration payments paid monthly

Prevalence adjustment• Only applies to practices doing national QOF

• Acknowledges that practices with low prevalence still have costs in setting up registers and regularly checking patients.

• Provides adequate income protection to practices with lowest prevalence

• Delivers appropriate rewards to practices with highest prevalence (no cap!)

How does it work?

• Prevalence adjustment is based on the contractor’s prevalence measured against the national average

• Contractor’s prevalence = no of patients on disease register

• Separate calculation made for each disease area

• Adjusts the pounds per point available for each disease area

CHD

Distribution of £s per point, under raw and adjusted prevalence rates - CHD

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

up t

o £

5

£5-£

10

£10-£

15

£15-£

20

£20-£

25

£25-£

30

£30-£

35

£35-£

40

£40-£

45

£45-£

50

£50-£

55

£55-£

60

£60-£

65

£65-£

70

£70-£

75

£75-£

80

£80-£

85

£85-£

90

£90-£

95

£95-£

100

£100-£

105

£105-£

110

£11

0-£

115

£11

5-£

120

£120-£

125

£125-£

130

£130-£

135

£135-£

140

£140-£

145

freq

uen

cy

Raw

Adjusted

Additional Services Adjustment

• Pounds per point adjusted by relative size of target population

• Protects contractors with large target populations

• Rewards for greater workload

• Relative size of contractor’s target population is compared to national average

Target Populations

Cervical screening Women aged 25 to 64 years

Child health surveillance Children aged under 5 years

Maternity services Women aged under 55 years

Contraceptive services Women aged under 55 years

Cervical Screening

Child health surveillance

Maternity Services

Contraceptive Services

Women aged 25 to 64 years

Children aged under 5 years

Women aged under 55 years

Women aged under 55 years

Don’t panic!

• For the national QOF, these calculations will be made automatically by the IMT software (Quality and Outcomes Framework Management & Analysis System aka QMAS)

• PCTs of PMS practices taking part in a locally agreed QOF will need to do their own calculations

Annual Review• Commissioned the School of Health and Related Research

(ScHARR) to develop proposals

• Separate guidance will be published in April 2004 by DH

• Current guidance sets out key principles

• Visits should take place between October and January - PCT should agree and publish a schedule

Supporting Information

• Supporting information to be submitted by contractor one month before the visit

• Required information set out in New GMS Contract 2003: Supplementary Guidance

• Must cover all areas for which the contractor intends to submit an achievement claim

• Will certainly include levels of exception reporting and any anomalous data eg on referrals

Annual Review Assessors• Selected on the basis of meeting certain competencies• Appropriately trained - national training available for a

limited number of assessors• One assessor will normally be a doctor (or another

healthcare professional by agreement between practice and PCT)

• One assessor will normally be a lay person• Bound by a code of practice on confidentiality• Visit may involve LMC

Outcomes of the Visit• Assessment of contractor’s likely achievement against the

QOF

• Written report, seen in draft by the practice

• Remedial plan if visit highlights issues around data quality eg Read coding

• Remedial plan to be implemented by contractor within one month of agreement

Annual Review Visit

DO• Identify the person responsible for visits

• Start working on a visit schedule now

• Identify potential assessors, and check availability

• Wait for publication of national guidance in April before working on the detail

Annual Review Visit

DON’T• Get too bogged down in detail: further guidance

will be published in April

• Assume national training will be available for ALL your assessors

• Ignore everything until April!

Ensuring Equity & Probity

• PCT verification of achievement claims before payment

• PCTs can re-score contractors’ achievement claims, in some circumstances

• Remedial action on data quality if annual review visit generates concerns

• Random 5% check of achievement claims to deter fraud

IM&T and Data Flows

• Practices do not need new software, just an RFA99 compliant clinical system

• Reports from QMAS - monthly to PCTs, at least monthly to practices

• QMAS reports will, in time, have comparative data on achievement and trends (local and national)

• Consultation on impact of Freedom of Information Act (kicks in January 2005)

GP Practice

PCT

PCT Payment Agency

OtherAchievement

Data(Web)

NHAIS

PC

Management and AnalysisSystem (MAS)

Centralised IM&T

Achievement Reports(Web)

Achievement Reports(Web)

AgreedAchievement(IT Interface)

Payments(BACS)

Clinical SystemAchievement Data

(IT Interface)

PC

GP ClinicalSystem

Review of QOF• Process for reviewing QOF will be established this

year

• Will be informed by PMS local QOF experience

• Major changes unlikely before April 2006

• Smaller changes before then to remove errors and take into account groundbreaking new evidence

• The IMT will do all the calculations for you

• You need to focus on:

- appointing a QOF lead for your PCT

- agreeing aspirations (if you haven’t already)

- encouraging practices to get ready for the IMT (Read codes, list cleaning, computerisation)

- identifying potential assessors

- booking annual review visits

• You are part of a world first!

To sum up...

Getting more information• GMS and PMS:

helpline - 0845 900 0008

inbox - gmspms.queries@npdt.nhs.uk

website - www.natpact.nhs.uk/primarycarecontracting/

• QOF guidance:

GMS www.doh.gov.uk/gmscontract/implementation.htm

PMS www.doh.gov.uk/pmsdevelopment/

pmsarrangementsdec03.pdf