2015/16 Contract FAQs
Practices may find these FAQs for the 2015/16 contract agreement helpful.

Additional/New Dementia Enhanced Service – Dementia Identification Scheme
You should have received/shortly receive details of a new 6 month national enhanced service (NES) – Dementia Identification Scheme – from NHS England. This NES sits outwith the15/16 contract negotiations and was pulled together very quickly by NHS England as a result of Prime Ministerial pressure to improve national identification and recording rates of patients with dementia. The enhanced service will pay practices £55 for every new diagnosis of dementia made prior to March 2015. It is highly likely that there will be a number of questions raised as the detail of the specification is considered. We will provide guidance as soon as it is available but if you have any questions in the meantime please do not hesitate to email Janice.foster@tees.nhs.uk and we will try to provide answers to specific questions.

QOF Changes 15/16
Details of the QOF changes for 2015-16 have now been released. We hope practices will welcome GPC negotiating minimum changes for the coming year affording practices a little stability in one element of their work in these uncertain times and assisting practices through being resourced to provide clinically appropriate care, and with more appropriate weighting of QOF points. As per the contract agreement, the overall points value and thresholds in QOF remain unchanged. However, 26 CKD indicators will end (the register remaining), with most of this transferring to the dementia domain, increasing the value of carrying out dementia care plans, to reflect the greater workload for GPs in this area. In addition, the CHD indicator (CHD006) will also end, with the points transferred to amended AF indicators to reflect the increased workload associated with current clinical management of AF with anticoagulation.

CPR Guidance
The BMA, Resus Council and RCN have updated their joint guidance on the cardiopulmonary resuscitation.