GMS Contract Changes for 2017/18

This is a summary of the changes agreed between the GPC and NHS England for the 2017/18 GMS Contract. Full details are available on the LMC Website (see Hot Topics) section.

  1. Funding
  • The global sum per weighted patient will rise from £80.59 to £85.35. This is an increase of 5.9%
  • The value of a QOF point will increase from £165.18 to £171.20. There will be no other changes to QOF.
  • The increase in the global sum takes into account the following:
  • Increased superannuation costs of 0.08% pension admin charges
  • Workload associated with overseas administration changes (see below)
  • Workload involved in the workforce survey
  • Workload involved in bagging (and labelling when that comes in) of medical records
  • Population growth
  • In addition, practices will be able to claim reimbursement for
  • CQC fees
  • Business Improvement District levies (where these apply)
  • In addition, practices will receive a payment to cover increases in GP indemnity costs. This payment will be based on actual list size and is intended to cover the increase for all GPs working in the practice including salaried GPs.
  1. Enhanced Services
  • Avoiding Unplanned Admissions DES will end on March 31st 2017, with funding going in to the global sum. There will be some contractual requirements about identifying and reviewing patients with severe frailty, but practices will not be performance managed on this.
  • Learning Disabilities DES – the payment per health check will increase from £116 to £140
  • Extended Hours DES – following the publication of the National Audit Office report on access which found that some practices close for a half day every week, changes will be made to the specification to make them ineligible to provide the Extended Hours DES (exceptions will be made for branch sites).
  1. Other contractual changes
  • Maternity Locum Reimbursement – reimbursement will no longer be subject to pro rata cap, which is great news as the LMC has been pushing for this for a while. Practices will only need to submit an invoice and will be reimbursed the full amount or the maximum payable sum.
  • Sickness Locum Reimbursement – this will no longer be discretionary and the qualifying criteria based on list size will be removed. This means more practices will be able to claim reimbursement. Payment will commence after 2 weeks and GPs within the practice can provide cover. There will be no medical exclusion criteria for this reimbursement.
  • Overseas visitors’ access to health care – the GPC has agreed that practices will help identify patients with a non-UK European Health Insurance Cared (EHIC) or S1 form. This will allow the NHS to claim back fees for hospital based care from the countries of origin where the UK has reciprocal arrangements. The GMS1 form will be revised and new patients will be asked to self-declare whether they hold a non-UK EHIC or a S1 form and a copy of the form will be sent to NHS Digital.
  • Retired QOF indicators – it will become a contractual requirement to allow extraction of this data, but practices are not required to code information (unless there is a clinical value in doing so) and practices will not be performance managed on this.
  • Registration of former prisoners – the GMS contract will be changed to allow prisoners to be able to register with a practice before they leave prison to ensure timely transfer of clinical information to improve patient management.
  • GP Retainer Scheme – a new and improved retainer scheme has been agreed to commence in April. The aim will be to retain GPs especially those towards the end of their career.