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Cloud-Based Telephony Data Collection

NHS England is collecting data from all cloud-based telephony suppliers of GP practices to support a better understanding of operational pressures in general practice, to support commissioning of local services, to inform service improvement and to facilitate better winter planning and periods of surge activity.

Purpose

With the implementation of Modern General Practice Access there is an opportunity to generate and understand a more accurate picture of telephony demand on general practice.

A new cloud based telephony data set will be used for operational purposes nationally and shared with integrated care boards (ICBs) at regular intervals to inform service improvement. This will provide insight to national and ICB teams regarding the level of demand on general practice. 

The data will be considered alongside existing data collections, such as online consultation submissions and GP Appointments Data (GPAD), which are already being collected by NHS England.


NHS England requires the provision of the data from general practices in accordance with its powers under section 259(1)(a) of the 2012 Act. Practices have been notified of this requirement through the Data Provision Notice issued by NHS England, which has been published on the NHS England website and shared with practices via email.

In line with section 259(5) of the 2012 Act, all general practices in England must comply with the requirement and provide information to NHS England in the form, manner and period specified in the Data Provision Notice.


Participation methodology

At the same time that practices received the Data Provision Notice via email, practices were sent an invitation to participate in the service via the Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS), which they have to respond to in order to take a ‘positive action’. Practices, as data controllers of the data that is provided to NHS England, are required to take a ‘positive action’ to participate in the service as a means of providing permission to suppliers, which act as data processors on behalf of practices, to extract and provide the required data to NHS England. 

CQRS helps providers track and declare achievements of the services they have delivered. It manages claims made by primary care providers, such as GP practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and also manages participation in all data collections for NHS England.

NHS England provides a list of all participating practices to all Cloud Based Telephony suppliers on a monthly basis in the last week of the month, leading up to the data submission window. It is very important that suppliers ensure they only ever provide data to NHS England for practices who have participated in the collection, or this could be classed as a data breach and may have to be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The participation list is provided in csv format and contains ODS codes of all participating practices.


Data specification

Where possible, cloud based telephony suppliers will provide NHS England with aggregate data as this is considered sufficient to enable NHS England to provide better insight into patient demand and access trends. However, it is recognised that it may not be possible, or it may be too difficult, for a proportion of cloud based telephony suppliers to provide the data in aggregate form, and therefore NHS England will accept the provision of anonymous, row-level data in order to generate the metrics outlined above.


The reference file: mapping Account Number to ODS code

The specification requires suppliers to send Account Number, a field defined as 'A unique account number for all corresponding GP Practices reported under the account'.

So that NHS England can determine which GP practices this data relates to, we require a reference or mapping file which lists which practice ODS codes are covered by which accounts to be sent each month.

The columns in this file are:

  • CBT_System_Supplier_Name
  • Account_Number
  • ODS_Code

There are more details and a sample file in the Supporting Information for Suppliers.


Submission guidance and methods

How the data is sent to NHS England

As explained in the 'Data specification' section - you will be submitting aggregated data or call-level data. NHS England requires data to be sent as uploads via Secure Electronic File Transfer, or SEFT. The decision to use SEFT was communicated to system suppliers on 14 October 2024, and a further request was sent that week to request some basic details to allow our Data Collections Service to set up a SEFT account. SEFT was selected from a range of transfer options as it balances functionality with ease of use.

For set-up instructions, please access the Supporting Information for Suppliers guide further down this page.

Frequency

The data is collected on a monthly basis, with the first extract taking place in October 2024. Data should be provided between the 1st – 5th of each month and should pertain to the previous month’s activity. Data will be requested to flow until the point that the Direction is withdrawn, or the provision of data is no longer needed; this will be reviewed on an annual basis as part of the GP contract consultations. 

The GP live collections timetable provides further details of when this data collection will take place. Please note that this timetable is a live document and may be edited to reflect a change to the collection schedule; users are advised to check this regularly for updates.

Format

As explained in the 'Data specification' section - you will be submitting aggregated data or call-level data. NHS England require data to be sent in CSV format, with the fields within the file to be split by a comma delimiter (,). Where a value you wish to return contains a comma within the value (,) then you must use a double quote ("") around that value.

Submissions must adhere to the Technical Output Specifications which can be accessed in the Data Specification section of this page, and there are also sample files for guidance. In addition, you can find further guidance in Supporting Information for Suppliers guide further down this page.


Template files - monthly submission


Supporting information for suppliers


Standard general medical services contract variation notice


Contact us

For further information about this collection, email: [email protected].

Last edited: 10 February 2025 2:08 pm