QoF performance drops slightly

GP practices in England saw their performance on the Quality and Outcomes Framework fall slightly over the past 12 months, with the average practice earning almost 2% fewer points than in the previous year.

Figures for QoF performance in 2009-10, published by the Information Centre this week, reveal that on average practices achieved 93.7% of the 1,000 points available, compared to an average points total of 95.4% in 2008-9.

Only 1% of GP practices achieved the maximum score of 1,000 points, when 2% reached the maximum score in 2008-9.

The Information Centre said the drop in performance was attributable to changes to the QoF in 2009-10, including the introduction of some new indicators and the removal of some patient experience indicators.

The QoF database shows that 8,305 GP practices took part in QoF during 2009-10 and submitted their data to the Quality Management and Analysis System.

Of those, 14.5% achieved less than 90% of the available points, when only 7% achieved less than 90% in 2008-9. The average number of points per practice in each primary care trust ranged from 878 to 971.2.

The IC said the highest recorded prevalence rates were for hypertension (13.4%) and asthma (5.9%), which also recorded the highest rates last year.

The IC said it would publish information on patient exception reporting rates this month.

Figures already published for Scotland and Northern Ireland showed that performance on the QoF fell in Northern Ireland but remained steady in Scotland and Wales. All three other home countries performed better than English GP practices.

In Wales, GP practices earned 95.25% of available points in the last financial year compared to 95.61 points in 2008-09.

GP practices in Northern Ireland earned 96.2% of the available points in 2009-10, compared with 97.3% in the previous 12 months.

And GP practices in Scotland earned 972.2 points out of 1,000 compared to 972 points in 2008-9.