Primary Care Support England (PCSE)
Page Contents
GP Payments and Pensions Online (GPPP)
Escalations
We are still receiving queries from practices regarding issues and concerns with PCSE.
PCSE’s escalation process is set out below and details how ICB colleagues, along with LMCs and other third-party stakeholders such as IGPM, can escalate a case on behalf of a customer if the lack of resolution meets one or more of the following criteria:
- causing severe financial hardship,
- risk to an individual’s safety presents and
- the agreed steps to resolve the issue have not been met by PCSE
Here is a reminder of the steps to follow to escalate a case that meet the criteria above:
- Ensure all the steps previously outlined have been followed.
Essential steps before escalating include; raising a case and obtaining a case reference number and having a conversation with PCSE’s Customer Support Centre about timescales and agreeing that the case should be high priority and/or urgent.
- Complete and submit the escalation form.
The escalation form should only include one escalation and these should be emailed individually to pcse.execenquiries@nhs.net.
- PCSE will check the case reference number and create a sub-case.
The team will link the original case with the newly opened sub-case and raise it with the appropriate team(s). The original case remains open.
- PCSE will respond to the individual who raised the original case.
The person escalating receives no further updates. The individual can provide additional information if this will help to resolve the matter but they should not chase for updates, as this will create additional tasks for PCSE to triage.
- PCSE investigates, offering appropriate timescales and works directly with the customer to resolve.
Claiming owed money
The BMA has produced guidance on service failures. This includes a document that details the process for making a claim.
The BMA say they are aware that practices and individual GPs continue to experience unacceptable incidents relating to PCSE (primary care support services in England), commissioned by NHS England and provided by Capita. The issues have been ongoing for some time and they are aware of cases where practices have not received payments or have received incorrect payments. It is never acceptable for payments to be delayed and the BMA advise practices to follow the below process to ensure incorrect payments are corrected. Similarly, they are aware that practices or individual doctors may have suffered losses due to the failing of these services and again they advise to follow the below process.
1. If a practice or individual has any issue due to the service provided by PCSE, such as delays or errors in payment, they should contact PCSE in the first instance to resolve the issues, putting appropriate details in the header to ensure PCSE can pass details onto the relevant back office team.
2. If the issue is not resolved by PCSE in a timely manner, then you should contact NHS England to make a claim at their designated email address pcse.ppinfo@nhs.net. They suggest that you include the following details in your email: –
- Your name and address (or the name of the practice and its address)
- The reason for your claim
- A clear explanation of the facts
- What losses are you are claiming (these may be direct losses such as your contractual payments, or indirect losses such as costs incurred because of having to take out a loan to pay for practice expenses)
- Attach any supporting documents which verify the facts in the letter and the amount claimed
- A date by which you want a full response, we recommend 28 days
- Any other relevant information NHS England should then be in contact about your claim.
You should note that by accepting an offer of compensation it could mean you forego the right to seek any further redress, so please consider fully all losses that you suffered because of failings by PCSE.
You may also wish to consider taking up your claim via the small claims court, however not all claims are suitable for this route. See BMA guidance on bringing a small claim.
If you cannot reach agreement with NHS England over your claim, please contact GPC England (info.gpc@bma.org.uk) who can escalate the issue on your behalf. Please include the previous correspondence and a clear outline of the issue and the desired outcome.
If you are unsure about the terms of any offer or your legal rights you may wish to seek independent legal advice, however, depending on the financial loss you have suffered, this may not be financially prudent. BMA Law offers expert legal advice at preferential rates for BMA members. They can be contacted on info@bmalaw.co.uk or 0300 123 2014.
GP Payments and Pensions Online (GPPP)
Following a number of queries, PCSE have created a Practice Manager Guide to Pensions. It may be useful and quicker to check this if you have an issue before raising with PCSE.
From 1st June 2021, PCSE launched the online service for payments and pensions.
This allows Practices and GPs working in General Practice to access a range of services to help manage their payments and pensions administration.
PCSE have created a number of useful guides for the new GP Pensions & Payments service and are available here and ‘How to’ videos on their YouTube channel.
They have also created FAQs for this service that can be seen on their “help page”.
They have also produced a guide for ” Contacting PCSE for GP Payments queries”
April 2023 – PCSE added a further useful tool – Estimate and Salary Change Guide
For any issues with payments, PCSE advise calling their customer support service (0333 014 2884) in the first instance rather than log the query online.
GP Employment Changes Awaiting Approval
If you are a Principal or Salaried GP and need to update your employment details, this is done using PCSE Online . Part of the process requires approval from either the ‘PL Practice Manager’ or the ICB who will receive an email from PCSE asking them to log onto PCSE Online in order to approve the change.
- If the status of your change is showing as ‘Waiting for Details’ this means that it is pending approval by the person at your practice with the ‘PL Practice Manager’ role on PCSE Online. Please speak to them to progress your request.
- If the status of your request is showing as ‘Awaiting NHSE’, this means that it is with your ICB awaiting approval. ICBs will acknowledge this change once the appropriate contractual changes have been made. Please speak to them to progress your request.
You can view the full process of completing an employment change here . Once your employment change has been approved, the status will change to assigned.
Useful Links to PCSE Resources
- PCSE YouTube Channel
- GP Payments and Pensions (GPPP) Guides
- Estimate and Salary Change Guide
- GP Statements – Factsheet (explains practice statements in more detail, including answering your questions about claim rejections and how to query a payment line)
- PCSE Online User Management webpage
- PCSE ‘Contact Us’ webpage
- Premises and Locum Cover claims in PCSE Online – video