ABSTRACT
Whilst there have been improvements in patient care as a result of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), the financial benefits for practices have been considerable. Since the beginning of the QOF the points achieved by practices have been converted to pounds per point to produce the final payment to practices. The practice list size which is used for this calculation is supplied to the Quality Management and Analysis System from the National Health Applications and Infrastructure Services, the national practice payments system, and is the registered list size on 1 January in each year. Having done all the clinical work, at the end of the QOF year there is a final adjustment for all of the clinical domains which depends on the practice's prevalence for that disease, apart from palliative care. Primary care trusts have been able to use a mathematical formula to advise practices about the financial implications of the change in prevalence factor.
