NHS England has asked system suppliers to restore QOF prompts relating to patients who failed to respond to invitations because it may affect their clinical care.
A leaked email revealed that NHS England has been in contact with software suppliers, including Vision, EMIS, TPP and Microtest.
The email, sent by Wessex LMCs, showed that NHS England intends to ‘amend the business rules for V44 to make it clear to suppliers that they should not remove system prompts from a patient record where they have not responded to two invitations for care’.
At the moment, if a patient has not responded to two invitations they can be automatically removed from the prompts lists before the end of QOF year, meaning that systems no longer issue alerts to indicate whether the patient has an outstanding review.
NHS England said: ‘The current issue is arising because system suppliers are linking the business rules (which are intended to produce a year end calculation and are correctly drafted to achieve this) within year care prompts. It is this linkage which is causing the prompts to be removed from the patients’ record, when from a clinical care perspective it would be better if they were to remain.’
It added: ‘As discussed, we have asked system suppliers to reinstate the prompts where patients have not responded to invitations for care. Vision have stated that they will do this when they implement V44 of the QOF business rules, used for year end QOF 2019-20, and EMIS plan to consult with their user group.
‘TPP have currently indicated that they will not do this as, in their view, this would require an amendment to the business rules. Whilst we are unconvinced that this is the case, we do nevertheless intend to amend the business rules for V44 to make it clear to suppliers that they should not remove system prompts from a patient record where they have not responded to two invitations for care. We have yet to receive a response from Microtest.’
NHS England declined to comment.
