Our involvement in Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) Local has proven to be a critical asset in improving efficiency, reducing administrative burdens, transforming governance, and creating a benchmark for data-driven claims management.

Background

The Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) is an approval, reporting and payments calculation system designed for GP practices.  The system is operated on behalf of NHS England (NHSE) by the commissioning support unit (CSU) collaborative.  It provides the means for general practices and primary care networks (PCN) to track, monitor and declare achievement of the services delivered by primary care.

There are two separate systems:

• a national service (CQRS National)
• a local service (CQRS Local)

CQRS Local has been developed by the commissioning support units (CSU) collaborative as a claim management system to support the introduction of local schemes between NHS commissioners and primary care providers.  It is set up for local enhanced services (LES) and local incentive schemes (LIS). 

The CQRS Local system, facilitated by NHS Midlands and Lancashire (NHS ML) within the CSU collaborative, enhances claims management of LIS across England’s primary care sector. This robust, intuitive platform automates and streamlines the reporting process, reducing administrative burdens and improving efficiency. It ensures reliable claims processing with a high service availability rate, supports compliance and governance with audit trails, and allows the addition of supporting documents to improve both the accuracy and integrity of the claims process.

Actions

At NHS ML, we play a pivotal role in the deployment and continuous improvement of CQRS Local, focusing on communications, training delivery, and user onboarding. Our efforts are primarily directed towards strengthening the CQRS Local brand through strategic digital communications, which helps build trust with current stakeholders and attracts new commissioners and primary care providers. We provide quality assurance across the programme’s communications and support commissioners with their transition to a new system to manage their local schemes.

Through strategic digital communications, we’ve strengthened the CQRS Local brand, enhancing its online presence across multiple channels, including YouTube, LinkedIn and the FutureNHS platform.  This comprehensive approach to brand management has effectively expanded the programme’s reach and user engagement. From April to May 2024, the LinkedIn profile alone had a 360% increase in followers from the previous period, an uplift of 781% page views and 528% unique visitors respectively.

Our robust training initiatives continue to receive positive feedback, highlighting their effectiveness. We support a dedicated website and manage an academy site containing training materials and guides ensuring stakeholders are well-equipped to use the CQRS Local system. These educational resources are crucial for maintaining high levels of competency among users.

Impact

Introducing pilot programmes as part of onboarding has proven to be a positive approach, allowing ICBs to try transitioning to the new claims management system with GP practices within their region. Trials enable users to experience the benefits the web-based tool brings to streamlining processes, enhancing reporting, and managing claims through a single portal.

User insights obtained from pilots, onboarding and user training are also shared with the CSU collaborative’s system development team to support ongoing system enhancements and improvements.

By continuing to demonstrate the value of CQRS Local through communications, pilot programmes and training, NHS ML’s involvement in CQRS Local has proven to be a critical asset in improving efficiency, reducing administrative burdens, transforming governance, and creating a benchmark for data-driven claims management. At the end of 2023, there were 28 integrated care boards (ICB) and sub-ICB users, and 2,879 active users, with £38.1m value of claims made during the year. The website attracted 14k users in 2023, 93% of which were new users.

Feedback

Users continue to share their feedback with the team at NHS ML about onboarding and embedding CQRS Local in their area.

“David really knows the subject matter inside out and despite running various training sessions for users, responds very quickly to any requests for support.” Sally Harrington, Transformation Lead, North East Essex Primary Care Team, Suffolk and North East Essex ICB.

“It was great to see that some of our feedback and development requests which we identified while coming on board with the system were taken forward, and we’re now seeing those change requests go live to make our use of the system easier.” Ross Hetherington, Primary Care Manager for Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.

“We had all the support needed during onboarding for CQRS Local. As a collaborative CSU programme, the support has been seamless – the CSU’s all worked together and are a great resource.”  NHS South West London ICB

For more information

For more information and to learn how we can help your organisation, please contact us.