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General Practice Extraction Service

The General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) collects information for a wide range of purposes, including providing GP payments. It works with the Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) and GP clinical systems as part of the GP Collections service.

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GPES comprises:

  • the GP Data Collector tool to query the database
  • extraction tools (GPET-E) designed by clinical system suppliers

For information about the development of GPES, see our Independent Advisory Group (IAG) documents.

A limited number of practices are classified as ‘shared’. These practices are excluded from all GPES collections.

This is usually because shared practices’ data is kept on a shared database and there is a small risk that incorrect or duplicated data could be collected by GPES, which could lead to issues with payment and Information Governance.

This exclusion list is agreed with suppliers every quarter and applied when the live scheduling takes place.

Types of data

GPES can collect 2 different types of information:

  • effectively anonymised data that doesn't reveal an individual's identity
  • patient-identifiable data (PID), that may identify an individual, such as a name, date of birth or postcode

PID data is only used when information is permitted by law or supports direct benefits to patient care. Find out more about how we look after health and care information.

How GP Collections work

We gather information and data, which is copied in to our systems. Data is collected automatically over a specified period of time - this is known as an extract. We normally use the following process:

  1. GPs record activity in their clinical systems for the services they provide.
  2. NHS England, or another organisation, requests information about a particular GP service.
  3. NHS England area teams offer GPs the option to participate in collections for that service.
  4. GPs agree to participate in collections for that service on CQRS.
  5. We collect information from GP clinical systems using GPES over a specified period.
  6. Practices will be able to use their own clinical system to view copies of data extracts. (Clinical suppliers will provide information to practices on how to do this.)
  7. If required, GP staff enter information manually into CQRS.
  8. We display the information we collect in CQRS.
  9. GPs check that the information collected is the same as is in their clinical system.
  10. If it's payment related, GPs 'declare' information from the collection to Regional Local Offices - who approve via CQRS.
  11. We provide the information to the organisation that requested it.
     

Manual collection

Some GP information needs to be inputted by hand into CQRS, including some Enhanced Services. This is either because the service hasn't yet been set up for automated collection, or the organisation requesting the information hasn't chosen this method. 

Once entered, manually collected information is processed and displayed in CQRS in the same way as automatically collected data. We advise GPs in advance if a service needs to be manually inputted and we provide CQRS user guides explaining this process.

Find out more about GP Collections.

Information governance

Requests for information are assessed by our information governance system for risks and benefits and to determine whether they are in the public interest. From May 2012 to June 2015, applications for data extracts to GPES were assessed by the Independent Advisory Group (IAG). 

The old IAG documents are available on The National Archives.

Contact details

Have a question about GPES?
Email: enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk

Last edited: 13 September 2021 10:46 am