A recent report has found that a number of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) could either end up in deficit or just breakeven at the end of the 2013/14 financial year, with the knock-on effect that they would not be awarded quality premium payments worth up to £30,000 per GP practice.

A think tank, the King’s Fund, found that up to 21 per cent per cent of CCGs, covering around 1,650 practices expect to tip into deficit or only narrowly avoid it by the end of this tax year.

NHS England guidance to CCGs for 2013/14 outlines two factors that would prevent a CCG receiving a quality premium. One is a ‘serious quality failure’ and the second is a CCG’s financial performance.

The guidance states that a CCG will not receive a quality premium if it has failed to manage within its total resources envelope, or exceeded the agreed level of surplus drawdown.

However, GP leaders say that this is a “completely ridiculous way” to distribute funding, as quality premium funding is there to improve the quality of care or health outcomes.

NHS Clinical Commissioners director Julie Wood said she understood CCGs would receive their quality payments in the third quarter of the next financial year once their end-of-year financial performance had been assessed and will build their forecasts into their financial plans for 2014/15.