Patients may be included in more than one management information count within the core contract components, ESs and vaccination and immunisation programmes that involve automated data collections. Many of these GP Contract Services involve payment counts and management information counts.
Payment counts are often viewed as success counts, whereby patients are included in these counts if they have received the care that is outlined in the GP Contract Service (e.g. if a patient has received the required vaccination). In contrast, management information counts are often viewed as exception counts and are used to help demonstrate why patients have not received the care that is outlined in the GP Contract Service.
There are a number of management information counts that are commonly used across GP Contract Services; these include counts of patients who:
- Were contraindicated to the care outlined in the GP Contract Service.
- Declined the care outlined in the GP Contract Service.
- Did not consent to the care outlined in the GP Contract Service.
- Received the care outlined in the GP Contract Service by another healthcare provider.
- Did not attend their appointment for the care outlined in the GP Contract Service.
- Had no recorded reason for not receiving the care outlined in the GP Contract Service.
For all GP Contract Services, success trumps exceptions. This means that patients who are included in payment counts (i.e. patients who have received the care outlined in the GP Contract Service) are not included in the corresponding management information counts that cover the reasons why the patients have not received the specified care. For example, a patient was recorded as receiving the required vaccination for a GP Contract Service but was also recorded as declining this vaccination. This patient would only be included in the payment count for this service; they would not be included in the declined management information count as once a patient has been included in a success count they are not included in an exception count.
If a patient did not receive the care outlined in a GP Contract Service but had multiple reasons for not receiving this care then they could be included in each of the appropriate management information counts. For example, a patient was not recorded as receiving the required vaccination for a GP Contract Service but was recorded as being contraindicated to this vaccination, declining this vaccination and not consenting to this vaccination. Unlike in the success trumps exception example, this patient could, in some circumstances, be included in all three of the associated management information counts regardless of the order in which the data were recorded. Once a patient is included in one exception management information count they still have the opportunity to be included in other exception management information counts.