Following a nationwide review, NHS England has changed its position and agreed that all GP practices that have met the minimum standards for avoiding unplanned admissions DES (Direct Enhanced Service) will receive payments that had originally been withheld.

NHS England area teams had originally claimed that some practices were not eligible for the funding worth tens of thousands of pounds, despite following the guidance in the specification, and it had withheld payments as a result.

However, now the body has directed area teams to pay any practice that met the minimum standard of putting 1.8 per cent of their patients on the DES risk register, although the teams have been told to manually calculate the achievement of practices, which might cause further delays.

The initial decision not to pay hinged on a dispute between NHS England and the General Practitioners’ Committee (GPC) about how often practices must complete a review of exiting care plans to trigger payments.

The GPC said that NHS England guidance had said GPs had to review care plans for their at risk patients in the 2015/16 financial year, which gave practices extra time to conduct the reviews. NHS England, on the other hand, claimed that practices had to review care plans in the past 12 months, so withheld payments to those that had been planning to undertake reviews at a later date.

Now though, a letter from NHS England assures practices that they will receive the money even if they have not reviewed their care plans during this financial year and states that it was not their intention to withhold payments where the work has been completed.