Herefordshire Outcomes Framework: Investment in Primary Care 2018-2021 - Draft Version 0.6: Engagement and Feedback February 2018

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Herefordshire Outcomes Framework: Investment in Primary Care 2018-2021 - Draft Version 0.6: Engagement and Feedback February 2018
Herefordshire Outcomes Framework:
Investment in Primary Care
2018-2021

                   Draft Version 0.6: Engagement
                   and Feedback
                   February 2018

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Herefordshire Outcomes Framework: Investment in Primary Care 2018-2021 - Draft Version 0.6: Engagement and Feedback February 2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 Background ………………………………………………………………..3
2.0 Context ……………………………………………………………………..4
National and local Policy
Framework Methodology
3.0 Framework Agreement…………………………………………………..7
Principles
Contract and funding framework

4.0 Commissioning for Outcomes ………………………………………..10

4.1Framework indicators and measures……………………………..….11
COPD
CVD
Diabetes
Mental Health
Cancer
Frailty
Medicines Optimisation
MSK
Urgent Care
Public Health

5.0 Contract Basis……………………………………………………………16
Contract outline
Payment mechanism
Payment for delivery
Payment for achievement
Key Performance Indicators
Data Return
Manual Data Return
Monitoring
Non Achievement of KPIs
Breach of Contract
Termination
Disputes
Standards of Practice
Equality and Diversity

6.0 Appendix………………………………………………………………..…21
Signatory page
Read codes/Template
Clinical pathways and guidelines
Resources

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Herefordshire Outcomes Framework: Investment in Primary Care 2018-2021 - Draft Version 0.6: Engagement and Feedback February 2018
1.0 Background

Herefordshire is a predominantly rural county, with the 4th lowest population density in
England, although the population has risen 8% since the 2001 census from 174,900 to
188,100.

Individuals aged 65 and over account for 23% of the population, including 5,900 residents aged
85 plus. By 2020 the 65-84 years old population is expected to increase by 9.4% whilst over 85
year olds population is expected to increase by 13.3%; a 0.4% drop is predicted in the 15-64
year old age group.

The life expectancy in Herefordshire is 79.7 years for males and 83.7 years for females both of
which are higher than the England average of 79.2 for males and 83.0 for females

The highest mortality rates across Herefordshire are from cardiovascular disease, cancers,
respiratory diseases and dementia. There are 7,680 years of potential life lost per annum, of
which 70% were due to cancers and circulatory diseases; 30% of all mortality in Herefordshire
occurs in in people under 75.

There are 24 GP practices across Herefordshire with 187,242 registered patients. Over 75% of
patients consider the overall service from their practices as very good or fairly good, with 15
practices scoring 90% or more. Patient experience of services in GP practices in Herefordshire
as a whole is 91% compared to 85% nationally.

The Herefordshire Outcomes Framework: Investment in Primary Care 2018/19 replaces all
previous local contracting methods such as previous Local Enhanced Services and the Local
Incentive Schemes into an outcome based commissioning framework to enable primary care to
utilise innovation and flexibility to meet the health population needs for Herefordshire patients.

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2.0 Context

Primary Care is an essential element of the wider health and social care system, and in
developing the Herefordshire Outcomes Framework for Primary Care we have aimed to align
priorities to compliment national and local plans and strategies.

Key drivers that will influence the CCG and Primary Care over the next few years include:

National and Local policy

Five Year Forward View
NHS England Five Year Forward View was published in October 2014 and sets out a vision for
the future of the HHS. Developed through partnership engagement it creates a collective view
of how the health service needs to change over the next five years if it is to reduce the
inequalities in the health of the population, quality of care and the funding of services. Priority
areas include; prevention, self-care, mental health, removing barriers to care (including across
organisations), redesign of urgent care and an acknowledgement that England is too diverse
for a ‘one size fits all’ solution.

GP Forward View

NHS England is investing £500 million in a national sustainability and transformation package
to support GP practices, which includes additional funds from the clinical commissioning group
(CCGs).

It includes help for struggling practices, plans to reduce workload, expansion of a
wider workforce, investment in technology and estates and a national development programme
to speed up transformation of services. They have committed to an increase in investment to
support general practice over the next five years.

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The plan was developed with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and Health
Education England (HEE) and contains over 80 specific, practical and funded steps to:

       channel investment
       grow and develop the workforce
       streamline the workload
       improve infrastructure
       and support practices to redesign their services to patients

    GPFV Funding:

    It is estimated, the additional investment in respect of the GPFV Programme across
    Herefordshire will be circa £6.8m over a three year period which commenced April 2016.
    This represents an additional £36 per head of population investment.

    In Summary:

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Sustainability and Transformation Plan

The Herefordshire and Worcestershire Transformation Partnership published the STP plan in
July 2017 following a period of consultation detailing how healthcare services would need to be
delivered over the next five years.

The Primary Care priorities in the plan are:

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   Prioritise investment to ensure delivery of the General Practice Forward View –
        developing primary care at scale “bottom-up” with practices, community pharmacy, third
        sector and health and care services.
       Redesign the primary care workforce, sharing resources across primary and secondary
        care to provide resilience and sustainability as well as capacity.
       Adopt an anticipatory model of provision – with proactive identification, case
        management and an MDT approach for those at risk of ill-health.
       Share information across practices and other providers to enable seamless care.
       Move to “big system management” – with real time data collection and analysis
        providing the intelligence to support continuous quality improvement and demand
        management.

The Strategy for Primary Care and the implementation plan for the STP Primary Care work
stream will be delivered through the GP Forward view plans which have been assured by NHS
England.

Framework Methodology
In understanding how to improve the health outcomes of Herefordshire residents, the CCG
uses a range of data sources to give an idea of where the opportunities may be.

NHS Right Care is a national NHS England supported programme committed to delivering the
best care to patients, making the NHS’s money go as far as possible and improving patient
outcomes. The aim is to ensure the best possible care is delivered as efficiently as possible,
which is essential for both patients and the NHS.

Ensuring people access the right care, in the right place at the right time means the NHS can
treat more people effectively, now and in the future. It’s unacceptable to see inconsistent
differences across the country around the type of care patients receive. NHS Right Care’s work
is core to ensuring the best possible care is delivered everywhere.

Using leading edge medical evidence and practical support helps local health economies
understand how money is spent to deliver the best care in different parts of the country.

NHS Right Care advises local health economies to:

       Make the best use of their resources – by tackling over use and underuse of resources.
       Understand their performance – by identifying variation between demographically
        similar populations so they can adopt and implement optimal care pathways more
        efficiently and effectively.
       Talk together about the same things – about population healthcare rather than
        organisations and encouraging joint decision-making.
       Focus on areas of greatest opportunity by identifying priority programmes which offer
        the best opportunities to improve healthcare for people and ensuring taxpayer money
        goes as far as possible.
       Use tried and tested evidence based processes to make sustainable improvement to
        reduce unwarranted variation.

The CCG will use the findings of the NHS Right Care data to determine its key priorities and
areas identified for improvement for delivery through this Framework.

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3.0 Framework agreement
The objectives of this framework:

       To support primary care through investment to secure the sustainability of General
        Practice.
       Provide an opportunity for General Practice to deliver new models of patient care.
       Support primary care in the delivery CCG strategic priorities.
       To ensure that there is the best use of all available resources.
       To reduce bureaucracy around the commissioning, service delivery, monitoring and
        payment functions.

    Principles

    1. The Framework outcomes and measures are evidence based from sources such as,
       but not exclusively to:
        NICE
        Quality and Outcomes Framework
        Right Care
        NHS Benchmarking
        NHS Digital

    2. The Framework is designed to be delivered by one or more of the Primary Care Home
       localities.
    3. The framework builds on the work already being undertaken in the Primary Care Home
       localities.
    4. Delivery of the outcomes should encompass a multi-disciplinary team. It is expected
       that a common set of competencies and skills will be in place across the Primary Care
       and Community workforce to enable the delivery of the indicators at a locality level.
    5. All practices/localities will deliver services according to national and locally agreed
       guidelines and policies.
    6. All practices/localities will ensure that there is attendance by clinical and managerial
       staff at GP/Nurse education sessions which may be held on a locality or CCG basis.
    7. All future investment in Primary Care will be through the Herefordshire Outcomes
       Framework for Primary Care in conjunction with the HCCG Investment Policy.

Funding and Contract Framework Funding Source

The framework agreement will run for a period of three years from April 2018 – March 2021.

The Herefordshire Outcomes Framework (HOF) will see total investment into primary care
through the HOF in 2018/19 of £1,761,230 (£8.80 per head of weighted population as at
January 2018) this includes Primary Care Home investment.

Practices will receive £7.80 per head of weighted population i.e. £1,561,230 excluding Primary
Care Home.

The table below details the sources of this investment:

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All practices will receive a summary of the payments they currently receive for their core
contract and for the HOF Investment in Primary Care funding. This information will also be
shown at locality level. See Appendix (I – to follow).

Funding the transition

3 Year Contract      Year 1                                   Year 2              Year 3
                     April -              October - March
                     September
Practice             25% of the total     25% of the total
                     funding for the      funding for the
                     HOF in 2018/19       HOF in 2018/19
Locality             25% of the total     25% of the total    100% of the         100% of the
                     funding for the      funding for the     total funding for   total funding for
                     HOF in 2018/19       HOF in 2018/19      the HOF in          the HOF in
                                                              2019/20             2020/21

Year 1

The CCG has supported the implementation of the Primary Care Home localities through an
investment of £200k in 2017/18. This has enabled recruitment of key support roles for localities
and the ability to fund the time of the locality leads at key meetings and to develop locality
delivery plans.

In the first year of the framework, £200k will continue to fund Primary Care Home support from
the £3 per head GP Forward View funding that CCGs are required to make available to GP
practices.

The Locality plan

Practices will work within their Primary Care Home localities to develop a locality plan to deliver
services either on an individual practice basis or across more than one practice or on a locality
footprint.

The locality will receive the first payment, on the following basis:

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   An agreed approach as to how the funding should be invoiced – this could be to a host
        practice agreed by the locality or on a fair shares basis (per registered patient) or on an
        arrangement agreed and signed up to by all practices in the locality
       The first payment is to support releasing key clinical and managerial staff to develop the
        plan

The locality plan will need to provide detail on:

1.Service Delivery
    How priorities for the locality’s population have been identified
    How the outcome measures will be delivered
    How services will include an integrated multi-disciplinary locality team
    How clinical and administrative staff capacity will be released

2.Governance
    How decisions in the locality are made
    How payments are to be made

3.Planning for Year 2
     Developing workforce solutions to delivering services
     What could be delivered in Primary Care? Practices/localities to identify opportunities
       as a result of releasing capacity through locality working of where services would be
       more appropriately delivered in Primary Care
     Releasing savings for reinvestment - practices/localities identifying investment through
       QIPP initiatives

Years 2 and 3

The CCG will work with practices/localities in Year 1 on the indicator set for Year 2 and once
agreed each locality will be required to prepare a plan to secure the aspiration payment.

When the final framework indicators and locality plans have been agreed a contract variation
will be issued to each practice/locality.

It is expected that the process for year 3 will be the same except where national or local
direction changes. In this instance the contract will be managed in line with the Contract
chapter at 5.0

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4.0 Commissioning for outcomes
Locally agreed outcomes have been developed across the Integrated Care Alliance

                           Patients feel:
                                The care & support I receive is delivered around my needs
                                I am entitled to a high quality service– wherever I live
                                I know where, how and when to access services when I
                                   need them
                                If I go to the wrong place for help, I’m assisted to the right
                                   place
                                I feel confident that I know what is available for me to make
                                   the right choices to remain fit and healthy throughout my
                                   life
                                I tell my story once & I have a single care plan that I own
                                I’m clear about my responsibilities and the responsibilities
                                   of others
                                Those who need to, can access up to date information
                                   about me to deliver care based on my preferences and
                                   needs
                                My carers know where to access the support that they
                                   need to maintain their health and wellbeing
                                I am happy with the services that I receive and am
                                   confident that those who need to, know my what my care
                                   plan means

                           GP practice team:
                               I work with my colleagues & other partners to deliver the
                                  best care & support to the local population
                               I work within the area I serve, working as part of a team
                                  with other professionals and disciplines
                               I can access and input into a single care record for the
                                  people we support
                               I know who to go to for managerial and professional advice
                               I know where decisions are made about services and am
                                  confident that my views are heard
                               I can access shared information and learning - to ensure
                                  that the care I provide is safe and best practice
                               I am trusted and supported to do the job that I am trained
                                  to do
                               I am able to do today’s work today
                               I am happy in my work

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4.1 Framework Indicators and Measures

Indicator      Indicator (and source         Links to       Measure        Achievement   Weighting
   Ref               reference)             Outcomes                        Validation

COPD

     1      Increase Case Finding for       1, 2, 6     Improvement        Evidence of   tbc
            Respiratory Diseases in                     from Qtr. 1 to     GRASP
            Primary Care – utilisation of               Qtr. 4             upload.
            the GRASP tool.

            Clinical Assessment,
            recording and appropriate
            management.
CVD

     1      Case Finding and                1, 2, 6     Improvement        Evidence of   tbc
            Optimising Management in                    from Qtr. 1 to     GRASP
            Atrial Fibrillation and Heart               Qtr. 4             upload.
            Failure utilising the GRASP
            tool.

            Clinical Assessment,
            recording and appropriate
            management

     2      Management of DVT               2, 4, 6     100% of suitable Audit           tbc
                                                        patients are
                                                        placed on the
                                                        appropriate
                                                        pathway

     3      Case Finding and                1, 2, 6     Improvement        Evidence of   tbc
            Optimising Management                       from Qtr. 1 to     GRASP
            Hypertension utilising the                  Qtr. 4             upload
            GRASP tool.

            Clinical Assessment,
            recording and appropriately
            management.

     4      Management of Anti-             2, 4, 6     a.Time in          EMIS search   tbc
            Coagulation                                 Therapeutic
                                                        Range rolling 12
                                                        months as per
                                                        INRstar or
                                                        equivalent
                                                        equal or above
                                                        the national

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average 65%

                                                     b.Share the
                                                     NPSA warfarin
                                                     quality metrics
                                                     INRstar for
                                                     benchmarking

     5     Management of Leg Ulcers        2, 4, 6   80% of patients    Audit         tbc
                                                     with Leg ulcers
                                                     will be healed
                                                     within 24 weeks

     6     Health Checks Follow Up         1, 2, 6    Where people      EMIS search   tbc
                                                     attending for a
                                                     healthcheck
                                                     have a raised
                                                     blood pressure,
                                                     they are
                                                     followed up
                                                     within 4 weeks

Diabetes

     1     Hypertension in Diabetes        1, 2, 6    The percentage    EMIS          tbc
                                                     of patients with
                                                     diabetes under
                                                     age of 60, on
                                                     the register, in
                                                     whom the last
                                                     blood pressure
                                                     reading
                                                     (measured in
                                                     preceding 12
                                                     months) is
                                                     140/80 mm HG
                                                     or less
     2     National Diabetes               1, 2, 6                                    tbc
           Prevention Programme

           a.Implement processes to                  a.Increase         EMIS
           assess and identify                       percentage of
           individuals at increased risk             patients on NDH
           of developing Type 2                      register to meet
           Diabetes and where non-                   local prevalence
           diabetic hyperglycaemic                   (6.3%)
           (NDH) add to NDH risk
           register for annual review
                                                     b.Achieve          EMIS

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b. Discuss diabetes                         practice pro-rata
          prevention with at risk                     target
          patients and, where eligible
          and medically suitable,
          referred to ‘NHS Diabetes
          Prevention Programme:
          Healthier You’
                                                      c.100% patients
          c. Demonstrate long term                    invited for         EMIS
          decrease in Type 2                          annual review
          Diabetes patients                           and health
          completing Healthier You                    outcome data
          have annual review of                       added if
          glycaemic status, weight                    attended
          and cardiovascular disease
          risk
Mental Health

     1    Physical Health Checks for     2, 4, 6      Screening and       EMIS search   tbc
          Severe Mental Illness                       physical
                                                      assessment of
                                                      60% of patients
                                                      on the SMI
                                                      register

                                                      Lester tool
                                                      assessment

     2    Dementia                       2, 4, 6      Where there is a    EMIS search   tbc
                                                      diagnosis of
                                                      mild cognitive
                                                      development –
                                                      the patient will
                                                      be recalled in 12
                                                      months

Cancer

     1    Where there is a possible      2, 4, 5, 6                       EMIS search   tbc
          diagnosis of prostate cancer
          there is shared decision                    A reduction in
          making with the patient                     the number of
                                                      PSA tests in
                                                      new
                                                      presentations of
                                                      patients in
                                                      primary care
Frailty

     1    Frailty Management             2, 4, 5, 6   100% of           EMIS            tbc
                                                      patients over the Searches
                                                      age of 65 who
                                                      have been

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assessed on the
                                                      Rockwood frailty
                                                      tool.

                                                       Answer ‘Yes’ to
                                                      the ‘surprise
                                                      question’ to
                                                      have an ACP
                                                      put in place.

Medicines Optimisation

     1    Shared Care                    2, 4, 6      Prescribing,                        tbc
                                                      recall and
                                                      monitoring of       Audit
                                                      shared care
                                                      medicines eg:
                                                      DMARDs in
                                                      rheumatology,
                                                      dementia
                                                      medicines

     2    Medication Review by a         2, 4, 6       For patients in    EMIS search     tbc
          pharmacist                                  Care Homes
                                                      (Nursing)

     3    Utilise digital prescribing    2, 4, 6      Utilise              Scriptswitch   tbc
          solutions to support CCG                    ScriptSwitch        benchmarking
          Formulary & Treatment                       prescribing
          Policy decisions                            support system,
                                                      working towards
                                                      CCG average
                                                      acceptance rate
Musculoskeletal

     1    All trauma and orthopaedic     1, 2, 4, 6   a.100% of GP        EMIS search     tbc
          patients will follow the MSK                referrals for
          pathway                                     patients will
                                                      follow the MSK
                                                      pathway

                                                      b.100% of
                                                      patient referrals
                                                      to have BMI,
                                                      Smoking status      EMIS search
                                                      and BP
                                                      embedded into
                                                      referral

Urgent Care

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1    Implementation of the APEX                 a.Launch APEX      Data         tbc
          tool to monitor demand and                 tool               extraction
          capacity
                                                     b.Adopt locally
                                                     agreed
                                                     measures

                                                     c. Increase
                                                     number of
                                                     appointments by
                                                     5% between 21
                                                     December 2018
                                                     – 7 January
                                                     2019

Public Health

     1    To ensure that all eligible      1, 2, 6   Minimum            Immform      tbc
          patients and all staff receive             threshold 75%
          a flu vaccination                          of all eligible
                                                     patients – to be
                                                     updated in line
                                                     with PHE/NHSE
                                                     guidance

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5.0 Contract Basis
5.1 Outline

This contract will be mutually dependent upon the ‘core’ contract. This means that only
providers who currently offer services under the General Medical Services (GMS) contracts will
be able to sign up to the Framework agreement. This mutual dependency means that the
Herefordshire Outcomes Framework for Primary Care (HOF) will be exclusively commissioned
from Herefordshire’s general practices.

Participation is on a practice or locality basis and to be accepted onto the scheme it is
expected that any practice participating in the Herefordshire Outcomes Framework for Primary
Care would also be delivering all core GMS services and maintain an open list.

In circumstances where a practice is applying to formally close its list the CCG would need to
be assured, through the application process, that the practice still has capacity to provide
enhanced services and that local patients remain able to have a choice of practices with which
to register and that the application to close the list does not compromise access for patients.

We will arrange a contract with each individual practice who signs up to the framework, which
will replace any previous contractual arrangements for Local Enhanced Services and/or Local
Incentive Schemes (LIS).

We would encourage practices to take the opportunity to work collaboratively with other
practices to deliver the services on a Primary Care Home footprint. This would be entirely at
the practice’s discretion.

The contracting route used to commission these services will be via a Local Incentive Scheme.

Signing up to the contract:
    Practices will be asked to opt in or out on an annual basis, with no option to change that
       decision part way through the year.
    An locality plan will need to be submitted outlining the plan to deliver contract
    Electronic templates for practices will be issued for monitoring.
    Practices will be required to return all documents to
       PrimaryCare.Contracting@herefordshireccg.nhs.uk.

5.2 Payment Mechanism

Payment will be weighted via core contract capitation.

This means that each practice commissioned to provide the HOF could potentially receive the
total of £7.80 per head. These payments will be processed locally by Herefordshire CCG
finance team.

Payments will be based on the list size as of the 1st January in each year of the contract in line
with the table below:

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Payment Month                     Payment Period                    Payment To
30th April                        April - June                      25% Practice
31st October                      July - Sept                       25% Locality for onward
                                                                    payment to practices in
                                                                    line with locality
31st May                          Reward – prior 12 months          25% to Practices
                                                                    25% Locality for onward
                                                                    payment to practices in
                                                                    line with locality plan

To participate in the Herefordshire Outcomes Framework practices will be required to sign up
by April 16th 2018 as payments will be made in the first month of the quarter

Payments will be made in three instalments across the year, with the third payment being
reconciliation to the amount due, based on delivery of the standards set in the HOF. This could
result in recovery by the CCG if deliverables are not achieved.

5.3 Payment for Delivery (50% of total payment)

In the first year of contract delivery, 50% of the payments will be paid to the practice/locality for:
     Signing up to the HOF contract
     Producing an delivery plan, which is to approved by CCG
     Implementing all of the delivery requirements in the standards, which will be reviewed
         by an appropriate panel to ensure appropriate standards (NOTE: delivery can be
         through individual, peer, locality or federative scale).
     Agreement to upload templates for collation of activity for monitoring
     Agreements for quarterly remote collection of date from templates
     Agreement to undertake audit where identified

5.4 Payment for achievement (up to 50% of total payment)

In the first year of contract delivery, measures are worth 50% of the total payment.

The patient list size at the start of the implementation of the framework will be used to calculate
payment

Each measure will be weighted to reflect workload and health outcome priority.

5.5 Key Performance Indicators

Key performance indictors will be assured through quantitative returns from electronic
templates and annual audits, which will be based at individual practice level.

Overall individual practice performance will be reviewed quarterly and any learning will be
feedback to practices to enable a culture of transparency.

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5.6 Data Return

Practices agree by signing this agreement for the CCG to have remote access to the EMIS
system through EMIS enterprise for the purpose of validating payment.

Quarterly EMIS enterprise searches will be undertaken remotely for data return sourced from
templates. Dates will be set with prior notice for data extraction.
Data will be shared quarterly with practices once data has been assured, analysed and
benchmarked to highlight practice activity, and learning such as areas of good practice and
improvements required.

Annual audits will be given with notice and agreed formats.

5.7 Manual Data Returns

In the event that the required data cannot be via an automated extraction, a manual return will
be required. Practice will be notified of the requirements, and will be provided with the
templates to complete. Any data required from practices must be received by the CCG in line
with the agreed deadline dates.

Submissions will be sense checked for completeness. If there are any omissions, it will be the
responsibility of the Practice to correct and resubmit to the data return email
PrimaryCare.Contracting@herefordshireccg.nhs.uk within 10 working days.

Late submissions may be approved if there are extenuating circumstances. Any requests will
be dealt with on an individual practice basis. Requests should be made to the data return email
PrimaryCare.Contracting@herefordshireccg.nhs.uk address within one month before the CCG
deadline.

Late submission will only be accepted if prior approval has been granted.

5.8 Monitoring

We will monitor and analyse the quarterly data submitted through EMIS enterprise.

An overall report for HOF activity will be produced six monthly and sent to practices to ensure
culture of collaboration and transparency.

We will take into account data from other sources as part of evaluation for deliverables, such
as SUS Data and GP Dashboard. Where this information is used to determine payment,
practices will be advised in advance.

Individual practices will be benchmarked against peers and previous practice trends.

Practices will be required to keep accurate records of all aspects of HOF contract for Post
Payment Verification (PPV).

5.9 Non Achievement of delivery of plan and/or KPIs

Where the practice/s are deemed not to have delivered their plan or met the KPIs the CCG will
seek to recover any over payment.

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The CCG may recover the money paid by deducting an equivalent amount from any payment
payable to the GP practice.

The practice/s will be notified of their achievement status within one month of the end of the
contract period.

On notification of non-achievement and details of financial recovery, the practice/s will have 10
working days to appeal the CCG decision.

5.10 Breach of Contract
In most cases, the issue of a breach notice, application of a sanction or a move to terminate a
contract should be considered as the final stages in a process where the CCG and the practice
have endeavoured to resolve matters satisfactorily, without the need to take formal contractual
steps.

There may be occasions when a practice is unable or unwilling to change their behaviour or
remedy a situation which may then result in a direct breach of the contracted terms set out in
this document which requires immediate action.

Where a practice has been found to have breached the HOF scheme and the breach is
determined to be capable of remedy, then the CCG may issue a remedial breach notice to the
practice and the group setting out the actions which must be taken to remedy the breach.
This will include the notice period during which the steps must be taken and identify a defined
date for review.

Where the CCG is satisfied that the practice has taken the required steps to remedy the breach
within the notice period, a letter will be issued to this affect and that no further action will be
taken at this stage.

The consequences of further breaching of the PCCF agreement through repeating the previous
breach or a new breach requiring a breach notice to be issued are the application by the CCG
of certain sanctions.

5.11 Termination

Termination is a significant action to take and the CCG will have exhausted all other possible
routes to resolve the matter before applying this sanction. The following process will be
undertaken prior to moving to terminate the PCCF agreement:

     5.11.1 CCG discovers an issue within the practice, such as but not exclusively:
               Evidence of inappropriate referring activities or an ineffective review process
               Non-compliance with pre-requisites (section xx)
               Failure to respond to breach notice
               Continued failure to meet requirements of PCCF agreement

     5.11.2 CCG to produce report recommending termination to be shared with the practice
            requesting comments.

     5.11.3 Report plus comments to be presented to the Primary Care Commissioning
            Committee for decision.

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5.11.4 Decision made at Primary Care Commissioning Committee and termination notice
            issued ceasing the agreement which should not be less than 28 days from the date
            of the notice.

     5.11.5 Should the practice decide to appeal the decision this will be considered via the
            local disputes/resolution policy.

5.12 Disputes
Any disputes from reporting will need to                 be    sent   within    10   days    to
PrimaryCare.Contracting@herefordshireccg.nhs.uk

The CCG will then follow the Local Dispute Resolution Process:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/joint-dispute-resolution-process-
1617.pdf

5.13 Standards of Practice

We acknowledge and support the statutory obligations for General Practitioners (GPs) and
Nurses, such as those set out in the NHS Constitution, General Medical Committee, Nursing
and Midwifery Council, Health and Care Professions Council and other regulatory bodies.

5.14 Equality and Diversity

An Equality Impact Assessment screen has been undertaken on this contract.

The CCG maintains the highest level of transparency to demonstrate that conflicts of interest
are managed in a way that cannot undermine the probity and accountability of the CCG.

Our     Conflict   of   Interest   policy     is   available    on    the      CCG    website;
http://www.herefordshireccg.nhs.uk/policies

Furthermore the CCG identifies, manages and records any potential or actual conflicts of
interests that may arise as part of the commissioning of healthcare for Herefordshire, which is
held in a register on the CCG website; http://www.herefordshireccg.nhs.uk/register-of-

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6.0 Appendix
The final document will include:

        Signatory page
        HOF investment by practice and locality
        EMIS Template with read codes
        Clinical Pathways and guidelines
        Resources
        HCCG Investment Policy

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