From qof at gpcontract.co.uk Tue Feb 5 16:33:01 2008 From: qof at gpcontract.co.uk (Gavin Jamie) Date: Tue Feb 5 16:33:01 2008 Subject: [QOF-Database-Alert] New Features from QOF Database Message-ID: You have probably been aware over the last couple of days and weeks that GPs and the government are heading for dispute over changes to the GP contract. Things are at best fraught and seem unlikely to improve any time soon. As is to be expected information can be hard to come by and what is available tends to be somewhat technical difficult to apply at the practice level. There are basically two scenarios currently in the open. The first is a proposal from DH that access and choice DESs (directed enhanced services) are removed as well as some (unspecified) points from the QOF. An extended hours DES will be set up. As the DES at least is quite well defined this can be modelled using publicly available data. This model can be access from each practice's home page on the site. There is also the opportunity for practices to tune the finances to see whether taking up the DES would make business sense. The second scenario would be imposed by the Department of Health if the first is rejected by GPs. It is more draconian and has thus been described by some as "vindictive". It would take more points out of the QOF and raise most of the clinical thresholds as well as cancelling the DESs. As the QOF changes are quite well specified in this case we can model the revised QOF against last year's data. Again this is available from each practice home page on this site with the exact loss of ca All of these figures are best estimates but will hopefully cast some light on the possibilities at least. To keep up with further changes just click on the "News" item in the top menu of the pages ( http://www.gpcontract.co.uk/news/news.html ). I will keep this updated as more information becomes available. There is also the option to subscribe to this via RSS (this is particularly easy in Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 You are receiving this message because you subscribed to the QOF alerts feature of the QOF Database site. There are about four messages a year. If you wish to stop the messages instructions are below. -- Gavin Jamie QOF Database From qof at gpcontract.co.uk Tue Feb 5 16:34:01 2008 From: qof at gpcontract.co.uk (Gavin Jamie) Date: Tue Feb 5 16:34:01 2008 Subject: [QOF-Database-Alert] New Features from QOF Database Message-ID: You have probably been aware over the last couple of days and weeks that GPs and the government are heading for dispute over changes to the GP contract. Things are at best fraught and seem unlikely to improve any time soon. As is to be expected information can be hard to come by and what is available tends to be somewhat technical difficult to apply at the practice level. There are basically two scenarios currently in the open. The first is a proposal from DH that access and choice DESs (directed enhanced services) are removed as well as some (unspecified) points from the QOF. An extended hours DES will be set up. As the DES at least is quite well defined this can be modelled using publicly available data. This model can be access from each practice's home page on the site. There is also the opportunity for practices to tune the finances to see whether taking up the DES would make business sense. The second scenario would be imposed by the Department of Health if the first is rejected by GPs. It is more draconian and has thus been described by some as "vindictive". It would take more points out of the QOF and raise most of the clinical thresholds as well as cancelling the DESs. As the QOF changes are quite well specified in this case we can model the revised QOF against last year's data. Again this is available from each practice home page on this site with the exact loss of ca All of these figures are best estimates but will hopefully cast some light on the possibilities at least. To keep up with further changes just click on the "News" item in the top menu of the pages ( http://www.gpcontract.co.uk/news/news.html ). I will keep this updated as more information becomes available. There is also the option to subscribe to this via RSS (this is particularly easy in Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 You are receiving this message because you subscribed to the QOF alerts feature of the QOF Database site. There are about four messages a year. If you wish to stop the messages instructions are below. -- Gavin Jamie QOF Database From qof at gpcontract.co.uk Mon Oct 6 00:00:02 2008 From: qof at gpcontract.co.uk (Gavin Jamie) Date: Sun Oct 5 23:00:02 2008 Subject: [QOF-Database-Alert] QOF data for 2007/8 now online at gpcontract.co.uk (mostly) Message-ID: Another year has passed and there is a new set of QOF data to pore over. Northern Ireland published first this year about a fortnight ago whilst Scotland and England both published last Tuesday. All of the data for these countries is now online at the QOF Database www.gpcontract.co.uk. You can search http://www.gpcontract.co.uk/search.php or browse http://www.gpcontract.co.uk/browse.php for the data. I will publish the Welsh data when it becomes available. Database download will also be available soon. Palliative care data is not visible yet. This is due to differences in the way that this has been reported. England gives a prevalence, the other countries just give a yes or no to the presence of a register. This will take a couple of tweaks to display sensibly and I will do this soon. In any case the prevalence is difficult to make a lot of sense of. These tend to be small numbers which inevitably vary quite considerably over time. In other site news I have removed the links to the QOF changes pages as these have become out of date as well as the extended hours calculator. In the latter case the national directed enhanced service is much less relevant as many local enhanced services filled the gap caused by its tardy arrival. For the future I am working on ways of keeping practice data up to date, particularly addresses. I also hope to bring in links to practice websites. As I am a one man band and there are about ten thousand practices automation is going to be essential and this is taking a little time to code. It is likely to come in gradually. If you want to unsubscribe to this very occasional email then the details are given below. -- Gavin Jamie QOF Database - www.gpcontract.co.uk From qof at gpcontract.co.uk Sat Oct 25 22:59:01 2008 From: qof at gpcontract.co.uk (Gavin Jamie) Date: Sat Oct 25 21:59:01 2008 Subject: [QOF-Database-Alert] Wales data now online (and some corrections) Message-ID: I am delighted to be able to say that I now have QOF data for all four countries on the site. Apologies to those who may have looked last week when last year's Welsh data appeared under this year's heading. Data on the really quite staggeringly scenic Argyle and Arran was also omitted from the first upload. I am pretty sure this is all right now. In addition there are now CSV files to download on the download page at http://www.gpcontract.co.uk/download.php These are only for those who know how to import stuff to databases as they are really large. There is also an Access file there but this has not yet had the corrections made as above and will not for at least a week as I am not near a copy of Access for a while now. The eagle eyed may spot some changes to the way depression is reported on the site this year. As England did not publish depression prevalence I have estimated the "Screening Population" ie.the number of patients with diabetes and heart disease who require screening from the denominator of Dep 1. I have also added an incidence measure for all practices based on the denominator of Dep 2 which should give some idea of the new cases of depression during the QOF year. The site does not list details for palliative care but will soon. England reported prevalences for this area this year whilst the other countries did not. This will take a few adjustments to the display software to make some sense. I also appreciate everybody is interested in the effect of removing the square root formula. I hope to crunch some number on this and get some idea of the likely changes but again not in the next week or so and is more likely to appear as points equivalent gain or loss than raw cash figures (although the conversion between the two is not that difficult to do). This should make the comparison between small and larger practices easier. Keep an eye out for updates at http://www.gpcontract.co.uk/news/news.html You have been sent this alert because you (or someone with a really peculiar sense of humour) signed up to the QOF Alerts list. Management details listed below. -- Gavin Jamie QOF Database www.gpcontract.co.uk