GPs to be contractually required to provide online consultation data

GP practices will be contractually required to provide ‘timely’ data related to their online consultation services to NHS England, as part of the next GP contract.

The commissioner said it will amend regulations to include a requirement for practices to provide the data to enable ‘consistent monitoring of access, patient experience and system performance’.

Practices are already required to provide cloud-based telephony data, after in 2024/25 NHSE introduced the requirement on eight metrics through a national data extraction, including call volumes, call backs made and average call length times, for use by NHS England, ICBs and PCNs.

NHS England said that the intention behind the new requirement for online tools data is ‘not to performance manage practices’, but to ‘support a clearer understanding of access’ and ‘help identify inequalities’.

Since October last year, practices have been required to keep their online consultation tools open for routine and admin requests throughout core hours, regardless of capacity, and the new contract will be changed to explicitly require that online consultation systems ‘must not cap the number of requests that can be submitted’ during core hours.

The Government consulted several stakeholders including the RCGP and patient groups on the GP contract changes, instead of a contract negotiation with the BMA’s GP committee, and said that as part of the consultation there was ‘broad recognition’ of the value of ‘transparent data’.

In a close of consultation letter to the GPC, NHS England said: ‘We will amend the Regulations to align with existing Cloud Based Telephony (CBT) requirements, to require practices to provide timely data and information related to online and video consultation services, enabling consistent monitoring of access, patient experience and system performance.

‘There was broad recognition of the value of transparent, high-quality data for understanding demand patterns, patient experience and inequalities.

‘Feedback was given on the importance of transparency in how data is used. We will clarify that the intention is not to performance manage practices, but to support a clearer understanding of access, highlight where improvement may be needed, and help identify inequalities.’

When the requirement to provide cloud based telephony data was introduced, the GPC raised concerns that NHS England could use it to performance manage practices.

NHS England said that the purpose of extracting this data ‘will be to better understand overall demand on general practice in advance of winter’ and its national director of primary care Dr Amanda Doyle said that there will be ‘absolutely no targets associated with it’ and ‘no financial implications for it’.

But GP leaders told Pulse that the data could be used to identify practices who are underperforming or even ‘quoted against GPs’.

The contract will also be amended from 1 April to mandate GPs to ‘engage’ with ICB performance improvement measures, which will include the new requirement for all urgent patients to be dealt with on the same day.

Read all of our coverage of the 2026/27 contract here.

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