Another statement has just been released regarding the PCSE incident whereby thousands of patient medical records were incorrectly archived instead of being sent to the subsequent GP practices. These records have now been sent back to practices, and NHS England is expecting those practices to undertake an assessment of harm for each patient affected. Practices affected will, by now, have received a list of NHS numbers of the patients whose records were delayed.

GPC England has been in discussions with NHS England to highlight the impact this would have on practices and their patients. It was made clear that practices should receive the necessary support to cover additional costs of dealing with a problem for which practices are not to blame to ensure that GPs and other staff are not taken away from direct patient facing provision. Unfortunately, NHS England was not prepared to provide the amount of funding believed to be necessary to cover GP and practice staff time required to do this assessment properly, and GPC England was not prepared to agree to a settlement which they believed would not fully compenstate practices for the problems created by Capita.

As a result, GPC England is looking for practices to join a potential legal action. Practices would need to complete a pro form and send it to the BMA at info.gpc@bma.org.uk in order to sign up for the case. The necessary information will then be collated to take forward a legal action. We emailed you the pro-forma on 1st October, but if you would like another copy please don't hesitate to use the Contact Us form here on our website and we will send out another one.